This is an attack on access.

Since January, the federal government has taken direct aim at the systems and institutions that make public knowledge possible. Thousands of federal web pages were removed or rewritten, gutting access to information about science, health, equity, and foreign policy. In February, a wave of terminations swept across presidential libraries and cultural agencies. At the National Archives and Records Administration, both the Archivist and Deputy Archivist were forced out. Teams at the JFK, Truman, and Eisenhower Presidential Libraries were disbanded. One site had to close its doors. These aren’t just staffing decisions—they’re assaults on institutional memory.

Then came the more blatant attacks in the form of new executive orders.

On March 14, the administration directed the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to eliminate its “non-statutory components and functions.” The language was vague. The intent was not. IMLS supports libraries across the country—libraries that serve over 1.2 billion in-person visits each year, on a microscopic 0.003% of the federal budget. Undermining that support doesn’t just affect jobs and buildings, it threatens access itself.

Two weeks later, on March 27, the White House issued a new directive titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Huh? That name alone tells you everything you need to know.

This order targeted three Smithsonian museums: the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the American Art Museum, and the in-progress Women’s History Museum. The order accuses these museums of portraying American history as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed,” and claims that such framing “deepens societal divides” and fosters “a sense of national shame.”

What these museums—and countless libraries, schools, and cultural institutions like them—have done isn’t a distortion. It’s honesty. They’ve told the truth—complex, often uncomfortable, and long-silenced truth. And that’s what made them a threat. This executive action is not about restoring truth. It’s about replacing it with a version that is sanitized, simplified, and politically convenient.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve been here before.

In 2020, following the Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd, the same administration created the “1776 Commission” through executive order. This commission—made up not of historians but of political allies and ideologues—was tasked with developing a “patriotic education.” Its goal was to promote “patriotic education” by downplaying the central role of slavery, inequality, and protest in the American story.

The result was the “1776 Report,” a thinly veiled rebuttal to The New York Times’ 1619 Project, which reframed the American origin story through the lens of slavery and the legacy of systemic racism. Released in the final days of Trump’s presidency, the report was quickly rescinded by President Biden upon taking office.

Now, it’s been dusted off, rewritten, and rebranded. Vice President JD Vance has been tasked with “correcting false revisions” and restoring a narrative that casts America as a pure, uninterrupted force for liberty and has always stood for universal freedom, ignoring centuries of enslavement, exclusion, and struggle. That’s not history. That’s propaganda. And it doesn’t just ignore centuries of injustice, it demands their omission.

What’s under attack isn’t just funding. It’s infrastructure — platforms, people, and partnerships that make local history available to the public. When those systems are dismantled, digitization stops. Access disappears. And communities are left in the dark.

It’s easy to think of archives and museums as neutral spaces. But in this moment, they’re battlegrounds. Museums, libraries, schools, and cultural institutions aren’t just places where history is stored or shared. They’re on the front lines in a political fight over what people are allowed to know about their country — and themselves.

And the most effective weapon being used? Denying access.

Here’s what we know: when access is erased, so is accountability. When history is kept behind closed doors—or buried behind paywalls, political pressure, or lack of infrastructure—it becomes a tool for those already in power. And when communities can’t reach their history, they lose more than information. They lose the ability to question, to understand, to act.

That’s why digitization should not be viewed as a luxury but a necessity, and why access should be embraced as a responsibility and a priority.

If we care about truth, we have to protect the pathways that lead to it. And we can’t do that alone. We need to forge partnerships of people and institutions who understand that access to history isn’t optional. It’s essential.

Because when access disappears, the future is written by those who want the past forgotten.

This moment demands more than concern. It demands action.