WATCH: Smithsonian director admits she sees history as ‘tool’ of ‘social justice’ in resurfaced 2025 clip

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2026 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by LSEG. Smithsonian National Museum of American History Director Anthea Hartig called history a "prime tool of social justice" in a resurfaced video. (Credit: YouTube/UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy - Feb. 25, 2025) After an explosive series of congressional hearings on alleged woke "ideological capture" at the Smithsonian, a resurfaced video of a presentation by National Museum of American History Director Anthea Hartig shows her calling "history as a practice" a "prime tool of social justice." In a series of July hearings on Capitol Hill, Hartig defended the Smithsonian’s record of objectivity and nonpartisanship. However, in a resurfaced presentation to University of California, Los Angeles students in February 2025, Hartig described "a number of ways in which your National Museum of American History is taking an equity-based, justice forward, c