The Point: Defending our cultural institutions
9/25/2025
This week’s Point is written by Jessica Holden, Associate University Archivist for Research Services. As always, The Point represents the views of the author and is not the official position of the FSU.
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” — Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
As our colleague Prof. Nick Juravich shared with us recently, federal workers and their unions are under attack. So, too, are our country’s cultural institutions, from tiny rural public libraries to the Smithsonian. Since early this year, the Trump administration has worked to rapidly and systematically dismantle, defund, and censor our nation’s libraries, archives, museums, and other organizations that preserve and provide access to information, culture, and creative expression.
One of the more visible aspects of this effort has been the removal of senior leadership across many of our country’s most prominent cultural institutions. Trump has pushed out the heads of the National Archives, the Library of Congress, and the National Portrait Gallery, and has even bizarrely named himself as chair of the board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. These firings have been accompanied by deeper structural attacks, including defunding and staff layoffs at the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, two major federal grant-funding agencies.
In addition to NEH and NEA, the Trump administration has targeted a lesser known but vitally important federal agency, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), whose mission is to “advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development.” As of the March 14 executive order, funding for IMLS comprised approximately .004% of the federal budget—a miniscule amount with a significant impact. IMLS not only provides grants to museums and libraries of all stripes across the United States but, crucially, serves as a lifeline for public libraries in rural low-income areas. Without access to federal funding, many of these public libraries risk closing entirely, cutting off their communities from essential services like job training, adult education, small business support, voter and tax assistance, and internet access.
We are also seeing widespread, large-scale censorship across government agencies, such as the National Park Service, where staff have been directed to remove signage, exhibits, and other content that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” The Defense Department has recklessly removed digital access to tens of thousands of historical photographs, seemingly because their metadata included words associated with DEI. One absurd example is this photograph of military biologists recording data about fish, including their gender.
All these attacks not only restrict access to information and critical community resources, but are a revisionist attempt to control public memory. An August 12 letter from the White House describes a planned “comprehensive internal review of selected Smithsonian museums and exhibitions [that] aims to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism [and] remove divisive or partisan narratives.” The letter mentions eight of the Smithsonian’s 21 museums, notably including the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of the American Indian.
As bleak as things may seem, resistance is growing. This summer, staff at Yosemite and Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks voted to unionize under the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE). The Denver Philharmonic Orchestra recently turned down an NEH grant and established their own fundraiser in order to protect language around diversity, equity, and inclusion. And across the country, from North Dakota to Vermont to North Carolina, people have gathered to protest library censorship and budget cuts. We can demonstrate, contact our elected representatives, and support our local cultural organizations by checking out library materials, purchasing museum memberships, and attending public programs. We can also encourage our students to engage with their communities’ libraries and museums, including the many throughout Boston. Together, we can—and must—resist this authoritarian takeover of our country’s cultural institutions. We must ensure that they remain accessible spaces for education, creativity, and civic engagement for all.
The committee for this year’s The Point currently includes Jessica Holden, Healey Library; Nick Juravich, History; Jeff Melnick, American Studies; and Steve Striffler, Labor Studies. If you want to join our committee, write an edition of The Point, or if you just have an idea, please write us at fsu@umb.edu.