|
| | Hirshhorn Director Steps Down | Melissa Chiu, the director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden for 12 years, is leaving to take over at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. She is the fourth Smithsonian museum director to depart within the last two years but says her decision has nothing to do with the Trump administration. Her final project, a redesign of the museum’s sculpture garden, will open in October. [New York Times 🔒] | | Bowser’s Final Budget Paints a Dire Picture | Mayor Bowser revealed her final budget proposal and it’s (unsurprisingly) not pretty. It includes $469M in cuts that will affect paid medical leave for workers, early childhood educator pay, and postpone raises for firefighters. Amid rising costs and flat revenue forecasts, significant cuts were inevitable, it is just a question of where they will come from. The proposal now heads to D.C. Council. [Washington Post 🔒] | | Triumphal Arch Revealed | The Trump administration revealed renderings for the President’s planned 250-foot triumphal arch opposite the Lincoln Memorial. The behemoth structure features the phrase “One Nation Under God” and is topped with a winged Lady Liberty statue. The plan still requires congressional authorization and already faces a lawsuit by veterans and historic preservationists who say it would obstruct views of the cemetery. [ARLnow] | | PG County Fights To Avert ICE Detention Centers | Lawmakers in Prince George’s County introduced a pair of bills to prevent an ICE detention facility from opening, closing any potential loopholes. While there are no current plans to build one in the county, there have been efforts in nearby Howard and Washington counties. [WTOP] |
|
|
|
| | | Your passport to French culture starts here. Alliance Française of Washington, DC invites you to immerse yourself in the language and joie de vivre of France. Adult classes run May 2–June 30, sign up by April 17 for an early bird discount. Language-rich summer camps available for kids too. Become a member for year-round access to exclusive cultural events and DC's vibrant Francophone community. Learn more at francedc.org. Bienvenue! |
|
|
|
| Why the Holocaust Museum Self-Censored Before Trump Even Asked |
| | The Holocaust Museum has been quietly changing its content since President Trump returned to office to avoid drawing the administration’s ire. We chatted with reporter Irie Sentner — who first broke the story in Politico — to break down what happened and what it means for D.C.’s cultural institutions. | | Okay, So What Did They Change? | The museum preemptively pulled a web page on “Teaching Materials on Nazism and Jim Crow,” and cancelled a one-day civic education workshop called "Fragility of Democracy and the Rise of the Nazis,” citing funding pressures and concerns about the current political climate. | | Yes, But Context Matters | The Holocaust Museum is a federal museum whose board is mostly appointed by the president. At the beginning of his second term, President Trump removed about a dozen of President Biden's appointees just months into their five-year terms and replaced them with loyalists. | | “That's never happened before. A president has never fired from the board a former president's appointees before their terms were up,” Sentner told us. | - It’s unclear if the directive came from the board itself, but Sentner confirmed it came from ongoing conversations by "museum leadership.”
| | | Connecting the Dots | The Holocaust Museum's response represents a broader pattern at D.C. cultural institutions. | | While Holocaust museum staff was pulling divisive programing, the Kennedy Center was undergoing a very public and thorough takeover by the Trump administration. In that instance, Trump was able to use his newly-appointed board of loyalists to push his priorities, ultimately announcing the institution would be shut down for two years starting in July for reconstruction. | | Additionally, last August the White House ordered an extensive review of eight of D.C.’s Smithsonian museums, in which they identified areas that needed revising to “ensure alignment” with the administration’s view of American history ahead of the country’s 250th birthday. | | Sentner explained that staff at the Holocaust Museum saw their programming changes as necessary to avoid similar public confrontation and board upheaval What makes the Holocaust Museum's situation significant is that this all happened under the rug, without the Trump administration having to order the changes. | | "There's a lot of self-preservation happening,” said Sentner. “Looking at what has happened at the other peer institutions…it's a realist choice to make." | | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
