Smithsonian Institution to Close Its Diversity Office
The Smithsonian Institution has announced that it will close its diversity office, freeze hiring for federal positions, and demand its staff return to in-person work in April. Among the cultural institutions affected by the decision are twenty-one museums, fourteen education and research centers, and the National Zoo, as well as the 6,500 workers who staff them. The changes respond to several executive orders signed last week by President Donald Trump, one of which declared the diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives promoted by the Joseph Biden administration “illegal and immoral.”
The closure of the DEI office came just days after the federally funded National Gallery of Art, which had just completed a rebrand centered around inclusion, announced that it was shutting down its own diversity program. The Washington Post reported that Smithsonian secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III in an email to employees cast the closure of the diversity office as the “first step” in addressing the executive orders. “Our institution is fully committed to excellence in our workforce, free from discrimination and harassment,” said a Smithsonian spokesperson in a statement. “We are closing our office of diversity but retaining our efforts at visitor accessibility as it serves a critical function.”
The Smithsonian—which includes the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of African Art, the National Museum of Asian Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum—is not a federal agency, but federal funding accounts for roughly two thirds of its billion-dollar annual budget. Additionally, just under two thirds of its workers are federal employees, while the rest are private. At the time of writing, the Smithsonian had forty-four active job postings across a wide variety of sectors and institutions.
