National Gallery of Art ends diversity programs due to Trump executive order

The National Gallery of Art said it has closed its diversity office and is reassigning staff, as institutions across the federal government are forced to comply with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Monday that declared diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives to be “illegal and immoral discrimination programs.”

The museum closed its office of belonging and inclusion, and removed related language from its website, museum spokesman Chris Abanavas said in a statement Friday. The gallery, which once stated “diversity, equity, access and inclusion” as part of its values, has now replaced the phrase with “welcoming and accessible” on its website.

Abanavas added that the employees of the office were reassigned to vacant positions elsewhere in the museum.

The National Gallery is a public-private institution that receives government funding for most of its operations. Most of its employees are federal workers. Several members of the museum’s board of trustees referred questions to the museum or did not respond to requests for comment about the change in policy.

The Smithsonian Institution, a separate organization that also operates in a hybrid model, has not announced changes in response to the executive order. In an email to staff on Tuesday obtained by The Washington Post, Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III wrote that the institution was examining “the new policy documents that might potentially impact our mission.”

The National Gallery’s changes effectively halt a four-year-long effort by the museum to broaden the racial makeup of its leadership, catalyzed in part by the 2020 police killing of George Floyd and a national reckoning about institutional racism.

Two former museum employees and a current employee anonymously signed a petition that year to “demand the museum’s accountability to complaints regarding racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ablism at the Gallery, both from employees and visitors.”

Senior staff in the museum’s director’s office and its research, curatorial and conservation departments were overwhelmingly White at the time. The petition cited Post articles that included allegations of racial and sexual harassment at the museum, as well as retaliation against employees who complained.

At the time, National Gallery of Art Director Kaywin Feldman denied the petitioners’ claims that “White supremacy is written into the Gallery’s mission statement,” but she agreed with calls to revamp hiring practices. She pledged to hire a manager for diversity and inclusion and expand staff training on anti-racism and bias. Mikka Gee Conway started her tenure as the gallery’s chief diversity, inclusion and belonging officer in September of that year until departing from the museum last year.

The National Gallery was also one of four museums that faced backlash in 2020 after leaders postponed an art exhibition by Philip Guston with imagery critical of the Ku Klux Klan and lynching, over worries that the work was too sensitive to display.

The museum unveiled its rebranding in May 2021, as it reopened to the public after a months-long shutdown prompted by the pandemic. It hired its first female chief curator, transforming Feldman’s seven-member senior cabinet from an all-White group to one that was majority people of color, the museum told The Post at the time. “Diversity, equity, access, and inclusion” were added to the institution’s official values.

That phrase — often shortened to “DEI” or “DEAI” — has become a target of conservatives who argue it discriminates against White people and other races, and Trump campaigned on promises to eradicate the movement. He issued an executive order on his first day in office ordering DEI initiatives across the federal government to close. The Office of Personnel Management sent guidance to federal departments and agencies on Tuesday, which included directives to ask workers about any efforts to disguise diversity programs, place affected employees on paid administrative leave and remove outward-facing media about the applicable offices by Wednesday.

According to Bunch’s Tuesday email, Smithsonian leadership, anticipating changes in federal policy, had “previously created a process for thoughtfully assessing them and determining the impact on our operations” and would follow up “in the near future” in more detail.

Bunch later added, “Every day, Americans experience the wonders of the Smithsonian, and we were pleased to host all those who came to Washington this past weekend to witness the start of the next chapter in our country’s history.”

Manuel Roig-Franzia contributed to this report.