It feels strange for museums to be under attack for their efforts to become more inclusive institutions, but this is exactly what is happening in the US. Within days of Donald Trump becoming president, the onslaught began through a series of executive orders that cut federal grants to museums and branded equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives in the arts as “dangerous, demeaning and immoral”.
And in the US there is parallel attack on how history is presented by cultural institutions. An executive order issued in late March, called Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, asserted that “Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth”.
This misleading representation of how history is presented in museums is part of a wider aim to distort the truth and exclude people from being able to tell their stories.
So, are we in danger of seeing the same attacks on museums in the UK? The current climate does feel very different from September last year when Lisa Nandy, the newly installed culture secretary, in a speech to the Labour Party conference, said: “It is our ambition that when, in five years’ time, we turn to face the nation again, we will face a self-confident country that can celebrate the rich diversity and inheritance of our communities and all the people in them. Where everybody’s contribution is seen and valued, and they see themselves reflected in our national story.”
The promised end to the culture wars feels a long way off at a time when attacks on EDI initiatives seem to be growing. But despite some nervousness about what lies ahead, now is not the time for timidity.
It almost feels ridiculous to have to say it, but not only are museums better places for being more inclusive, it is the right thing to do. And although it does vary greatly across the sector, many museums have embedded inclusion in their institutions. Our communities benefit from it, funders want to support it and museums have shown that they can deliver it. Far from being something novel, EDI is just an everyday part of what museums do. This should be the message to those who threaten this work.