Moosha Moosha Mooshme

I teach a Masters-level course on museum studies at New York University. While my students were on break there was a flurry of Presidential orders pertaining to museums. First, President Trump issued an executive order naming the independent Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) as one of seven that should be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”

Then he issued the March 27^th Executive Order: “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Key Provisions of the executive order include revising museum exhibits, specifically targeting “improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology,” such as displays that address topics like race, gender, and other social issues; designating the Vice President to play an oversight role to ensure that Smithsonian exhibits and educational programs align with the administration’s interpretation of American values; and calling for the restoration of national monuments and statues that have been removed or renamed in recent years

Finally, the day before I was set to meet with my students, this was the latest news: “The Trump administration on Monday placed the staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services on administrative leave, setting the stage for potentially ending the main source of federal support for the country’s museums and libraries.”  

I had to quickly make a decision about how best to prepare my students—many of whom are on a path to begin careers as museum professionals—to be equipped to understand what is going on and their possible roles within it. I did not see my task as to teach them to be political but rather to teach the politics and help them to think critically about it.

I gathered together what I, as museum professional, had been seeing: the Executive Order, the headlines, the museum industry emails, and more, and entered class thinking I had a plan.

Within moments of class starting I had to throw that plan out the window. The first hour of my curriculum (about our upcoming field trip, about a science visualization project on Flamingos at the American Museum of Natural History) would need to be put on hold. “Can I ask a question about what you posted on Slack?” began the session as one student referred to the most recent Executive Order.

For a beat I considered saying, “We’ll get to that in an hour,” before coming to my senses. This is where they were and what they needed to discuss.

I started by opening the floor: What questions to you have? What are you thinking? What are you feeling? They talked about being confused, and sad, and concerned about their careers. They asked questions: about why this is, how museums are funded, and how these federal efforts can be stopped.

I avoided answering questions when they arose; I just let them build up as they took the space to say what was on their minds. Once everyone had a chance, and the hand raising slowed down, I tried to tackle the questions at once by providing as broad a framework as I could.

I first spoke about the President’s concerns about a “deep state”, how his attempts to shift powered from Federal agencies to the President’s office largely failed during his first administration and what we are seeing now is him taking a different approach. I spoke about its potentially illegal nature, since Congress has the power of the purse and authorized many of the agencies now under attack. And how the current situation faced by museums is just part of those efforts—just another group of dedicated public employees who have been told to stop working, jeopardizing millions in committed funding to yet another sector who is scared about what comes next.

I then spoke about how this is DIFFERENT. The other efforts shuttering federal agencies is being done under the guide of “efficiency.” The attack on the IMLS and the new Executive Order never use that word. Instead, it’s about, as the title says, “Restoring Truth and Sanity.” In other words, it’s about shifting power for who controls what messages museums can deliver, and to whom.

The broader context for that goes back to the origin of museums. I reminded them all about what we have learned, about how museums started as private cabinets of curiosity for merchants and the wealthy. They were then reframed under a scientific lens as public institutions to preserve what the dominant culture decided was most important and to educate the public. The lens, however, as in American at the turn of the 20^th Century, was not always about helping the millions of new European immigrants see themselves in the exhibits but, rarely, more easily assimilate into America. And it is only in recent decades where we’ve seen major shifts for museums to move from elitist institutions to being of and for their communities, to broadening the voices of authority to include more types of valued perspectives, of addressing historical harms (such as racist representations and unethical collecting practices).

Which is all just to say that the definition of museums and our understanding of the roles they play in society has always been both contested and evolving. And the current battle happening around us is just the next phase, all sides drawing from this history.

All of that was my ad-hoc response to my students expressed immediate needs. With this as foundation, I told them we could keep discussing it or I was ready to move on to the activity I had prepared.

Now they were ready.

I reminded them that the first activity we ever did in the program was a sociological experiment–If museums were to suddenly disappear, as if they never existed, what are all the places where they’d need to be erased? Answers run the gamut: from being represented in movies and games, from being a source of school field trips, etc. The idea was to help them recognize that museums were not found buried in the earth; they are and have always been socially constructed.

I used that to segue to saying all the things being said about museums this month are just part of that process of society deciding what role we want them to play, and where those ideas are being contested. I told them I am not interested in sharing different perspectives with them so they can just “find their tribe” but rather understand the contested concepts so they could be versed enough to effectively argue with someone about it and defend their own values.

To do that, I shared with them a wide range of printed materials that I had collected during the break. They were:

• Articles: From the New York Times. “Taking Aim at Smithsonian, Trump Wades Into Race and Biology” & “Trump Administration Moves to Shutter Library Agency”
• Industry alerts: From the American Association for State and Local History. “Together in the Face of Uncertainty” & “Defending Our Full, Shared History at the Smithsonian…” And an email about a rally to defend museums.
• The Presidential executive order mentioned above.  
• An email from the office of our local Senator (Charles Schumer) on the topic.

(all files can be access here)

I broke them into group. I instructed each group to take one executive order and then two of any of other documents. With makers in hand, I asked highlight every word or phrase that answers the phrase: This is what museums are for. The idea is to do a deep reading of the texts to unpack their assumptions about the role of museums in society.

Once that was done, the next task was to put two words or phrases from each text on a  post-it note then put them on the white board. It was important not to reveal the source; our goal was simply to collecting all the different associations with museums.

As the post-its collected I summarized them on the board. Then we discussed.

We reviewed each one by looking back at the textual examples from their reading, so we could understand how that specific role was being defined and framed.

Often, we found concepts (those circled) that all sides could agree on (museums build community, museums educate, museums frame American history, etc). 

I highlighted that at the highest level, there is agreement, but the difference is in the details. What sort of community? What is being taught? How is American history framed? So when defending museums we must be careful; we can’t fight for our perspective on museums by just drawing from these shared values, as people might hear the opposite of what we intend. However we CAN draw on these to start the conversation, to get general agreement, and then proceed to get into the details and argue for other roles where they might not be agreement (patriotism versus evidence-based history). 

Afterwards, I checked in to see where they were at. One student said they had never seen museums before as political but now they realize they must. Another said they still felt sad, and was concerned about entry paths to museums closing up. One student asked if we had ever seen this before in American history and how we responded; I shared that often political pressure has been brought to bear on museum spaces, but that this consolidation of power to redefine museums in such a naked way as a tool of propaganda is wholly new in modern memory. 

I ended by sharing what a client of mine has told me many times since January: All we can do is what we can control, and what is under our control is just doing the good, hard work that we are able to do. And the work will continue. I also said what gives me hope is each of them, about their future entrance into the field, and all they will bring to it.

Then we did a hard pivot and talked about Flamingos, getting back to the good, hard work.