On Thursday, the Trump administration issued an govt order that took intention at one of many US’s foremost cultural and scientific establishments: the Smithsonian. Upset by displays that reference the function of racism, sexism, and extra within the nation’s difficult previous, the order duties the vp and a former insurance coverage lawyer (?) with guaranteeing that the Smithsonian Establishment is a “image of inspiration and American greatness”—a command that particularly consists of the Nationwide Zoo.

However within the strategy of airing the administration’s grievances, the doc particularly calls out a Smithsonian show for precisely describing our present scientific understanding of race. That raises the prospect that the vp will in the end demand that the Smithsonian show scientifically inaccurate info.

Grievance vs. science

The executive order, entitled “Restoring Fact And Sanity To American Historical past,” is stuffed with what has grow to be a regular grievance: the accusation that, by recognizing the numerous circumstances the place the US has not lived as much as its founding beliefs, establishments are trying to “rewrite our nation’s historical past.” It particularly calls out discussions of historic racism, sexism, and oppression as undercutting the US’s “unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, particular person rights, and human happiness.”

Even in case you transfer previous the apparent rigidity between a legacy of advancing liberty and the perpetuation of slavery within the US’s founding paperwork, there are different ironies right here. For instance, the order slams the Division of the Inside’s function in implementing adjustments that “inappropriately decrease the worth of sure historic occasions or figures” on the identical time that the administration’s insurance policies have led to the removal of references to transgender individuals and minorities and women.