For years, the Smithsonian Institution has received more than $1 billion annually from American taxpayers while expanding diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across its vast network of museums, educational programs and facilities.
Now, the institution is facing renewed criticism over whether those programs have actually disappeared—or simply been renamed and moved into other parts of the organization.
The controversy reaches all the way to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, where critics say officials continued promoting DEI-related initiatives even after President Donald Trump moved to eliminate what his administration viewed as divisive ideological programming within federally supported institutions.
