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Tag: Executive Orders and Memorandums

  • Trump budget draft ends Narcan program and other addiction measures.

    Trump budget draft ends Narcan program and other addiction measures.


    The opioid overdose reversal medication commercially known as Narcan saves hundreds of thousands of lives a year and is routinely praised by public health experts for contributing to the continuing drop in opioid-related deaths. But the Trump administration plans to terminate a $56 million annual grant program that distributes doses and trains emergency responders in communities across the country to administer them, according to a draft budget proposal.

    In the document, which outlines details of the drastic reorganization and shrinking planned for the Department of Health and Human Services, the grant is among many addiction prevention and treatment programs to be zeroed out.

    States and local governments have other resources for obtaining doses of Narcan, which is also known by its generic name, naloxone. One of the main sources, a program of block grants for states to use to pay for various measures to combat opioid addiction, does not appear to have been cut.

    But addiction specialists are worried about the symbolic as well as practical implications of shutting down a federal grant designated specifically for naloxone training and distribution.

    “Reducing the funding for naloxone and overdose prevention sends the message that we would rather people who use drugs die than get the support they need and deserve,” said Dr. Melody Glenn, an addiction medicine physician and assistant professor at the University of Arizona, who monitors such programs along the state’s southern border.

    At the scene of an emergency, first responders can hand out extra doses of Narcan and information about addiction recovery services.Credit…Arin Yoon for The New York Times

    Neither the Department of Health and Human Services nor the White House’s drug policy office responded to requests for comment.

    Although budget decisions are not finalized and could be adjusted, Dr. Glenn and others see the fact that the Trump administration has not even opened applications for new grants as another indication that the programs may be eliminated.

    Other addiction-related grants on the chopping block include those offering treatment for pregnant and postpartum women; peer support programs typically run by people who are in recovery; a program called the “youth prevention and recovery initiative”; and programs that develop pain management protocols for emergency departments in lieu of opioids.

    The federal health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has long shown a passionate interest in addressing the drug crisis and has been outspoken about his own recovery from heroin addiction. The proposed elimination of addiction programs seems at odds with that goal. Last year, Mr. Kennedy’s presidential campaign produced a documentary that outlined federally supported pathways out of addiction.

    The grants were awarded through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an agency within the federal health department that would itself be eliminated under the draft budget proposal, though some of its programs would continue under a new entity, the Administration for a Healthy America.

    In 2024, recipients of the naloxone grants, including cities, tribes and nonprofit groups, trained 66,000 police officers, fire fighters and emergency medical responders, and distributed over 282,500 naloxone kits, according to a spokesman for the substance abuse agency.

    “Narcan has been kind of a godsend as far as opioid epidemics are concerned, and we certainly are in the middle of one now with fentanyl,” said Donald McNamara, who oversees naloxone procurement and training for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “We need this funding source because it’s saving lives every day.”

    Matthew Cushman, a fire department paramedic in Raytown, Mo., said that through the naloxone grant program, he had trained thousands of police officers, firefighters and emergency medical responders throughout Kansas City and western rural areas. The program provides trainees with pouches of naloxone to administer in the field plus “leave behind” kits with information about detox and treatment clinics.

    Matthew Cushman, a paramedic in Raytown, Mo., has taught thousands of police officers, firefighters and emergency medical responders how to use Narcan.Credit…Arin Yoon for The New York Times

    In 2023, federal figures started to show that national opioid deaths were finally declining, progress that many public health experts attribute in some measure to wider availability of the drug, which the Food and Drug Administration approved for over-the-counter sales that year.

    Tennessee reports that between 2017 and 2024, 103,000 lives saved were directly attributable to naloxone. In Kentucky, which trains and supplies emergency medical workers in 68 rural communities, a health department spokeswoman noted that in 2023, overdose fatalities dropped by nearly 10 percent.

    And though the focus of the Trump administration’s Office of National Drug Control Policy is weighted toward border policing and drug prosecutions, its priorities, released in an official statement this month, include the goal of expanding access to “lifesaving opioid overdose reversal medications like naloxone.”

    “They immediately reference how much they want to support first responders and naloxone distribution,” said Rachel Winograd, director of the addiction science team at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, who oversees the state’s federally funded naloxone program. “Juxtaposing those statements of support with the proposed eliminations is extremely confusing.”

    Mr. Cushman, the paramedic in Missouri, said that ending the naloxone grant program would not only cut off a source of the medication to emergency responders but would also stop classes that do significantly more than teach how to administer it.

    His cited the insights offered by his co-instructor, Ray Rath, who is in recovery from heroin and is a certified peer support counselor. In training sessions, Mr. Rath recounts how, after a nasal spray of Narcan yanked him back from a heroin overdose, he found himself on the ground, looking up at police officers and emergency medical responders. They were snickering.

    “Ah this junkie again, he’s just going to kill himself; we’re out here for no reason,” he recalled them saying.

    Ray Rath, who is in recovery from heroin, leads naloxone trainings alongside Mr. Cushman, giving emergency responders the viewpoint of someone who was revived by the medication numerous times.Credit…Arin Yoon for The New York Times

    Mr. Rath said he speaks with trainees about how the individuals they revive are “people that have an illness.”

    “And once we start treating them like people, they feel like people,” he continued. “They feel cared about, and they want to make a change.”

    He estimated that during the years he used opioids, naloxone revived him from overdoses at least 10 times. He has been in recovery for five years, a training instructor for the last three. He also works in homeless encampments in Kansas, offering services to people who use drugs. The back of his T-shirt reads: “Hope Dealer.”



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  • Trump Administration Seeks Artists for ‘Garden of Heroes’ Statues

    Trump Administration Seeks Artists for ‘Garden of Heroes’ Statues



    Those selected would receive up to $200,000 to create one of the 250 sculptures, which will be paid for in part with canceled grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities.



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  • Trump Seeks to Lower Drug Prices Through Medicare and Some Imports

    Trump Seeks to Lower Drug Prices Through Medicare and Some Imports


    President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday outlining a series of actions intended to lower drug prices, including helping states import drugs from Canada.

    The policies were more modest than proposals to reduce drug prices that Mr. Trump offered in his first term.

    And one of his new directives could increase drug prices. It calls for the Trump administration to work with Congress to change a 2022 law in a way that could defang a negotiation program meant to reduce Medicare’s spending on commonly used or costly drugs.

    Such a change has the potential to increase costs for the government, because it would most likely delay the existing timetable for some drugs to become eligible for Medicare price cuts.

    Depending on how it is structured, it could increase Medicare’s drug spending by billions of dollars compared with outlays under the current law. The negotiation program was approved by a Democratic-controlled Congress and supported by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

    The executive order says that changes to the Medicare price negotiation program should be “coupled with other reforms to prevent any increase in overall costs to Medicare and its beneficiaries.”

    Drug pricing experts said that with the exception of the Medicare negotiation proposal, other directives in the executive order had the potential to save money for patients and government programs. None of the actions represented major changes that would lead to huge savings.

    One provision would lower the co-payments that some people on Medicare face when they undergo treatments like chemotherapy infusions at certain clinics and at outpatient hospital sites. Another would give certain lower-income people access to heavily discounted insulin and epinephrine injections.

    Tuesday’s executive order was the most prominent move Mr. Trump’s second administration has made so far on drug pricing.

    It followed Mr. Trump’s decision to move closer to imposing tariffs on imported pharmaceuticals, which manufacturers are likely to try to pass on. That could force government programs, employers and patients to pay more for some medications and could exacerbate shortages of critical drugs.

    Some of the directives, like changing the Medicare negotiation program, would require congressional approval. The pharmaceutical industry has fiercely opposed some of the ideas in the executive order while supporting others.

    Mr. Trump has long complained that the United States pays much more than other wealthy countries for the same drugs. Notably absent from the order was a reprise of a most favored nation pricing policy, which he proposed in his first term aimed at making U.S. drug prices closer to those that peer countries pay. Like several of Mr. Trump’s first-term policies on drug prices, his most favored nation plan was halted by federal courts. Last fall, Mr. Trump‘s presidential campaign walked back the proposal.

    Here’s a breakdown of some of the most notable parts of Mr. Trump’s executive order.

    The order directs Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, to work with Congress to address a difference in how certain types of drugs are treated in the Medicare negotiation program.

    Under the law, pills and other drugs produced through synthetic processes do not become eligible for price cuts until they have been on the market for nine years. Drugs known as biologics — created from living cells and often given as an infusion — would not be eligible for 13 years.

    Drugmakers, who unsuccessfully sued the federal government over the program, bitterly call the difference a “pill penalty.” They say it discourages them from developing medications, because they have less time to build up sales before the price cuts kick in, depriving patients of new treatments. They have lobbied for pills to be exempted from the price cuts for 13 years instead of nine.

    Lawmakers have introduced legislation that would change the law to treat the two types of drugs equally.

    The president’s order does not specify how many years each type of drug should be exempt from Medicare price cuts.

    In a statement on Tuesday, Alex Schriver, an official at the drug industry’s main lobbying group, PhRMA, said that his organization would work with the Trump administration and Congress to “advance common sense solutions that lower costs and improve access for Americans.”

    Biden officials oversaw the first round of negotiations in the program, resulting in price cuts that will go into effect in 2026. The Trump administration is overseeing negotiations this year for lower prices in 2027 for drugs including the blockbuster weight-loss medication sold as Ozempic and Wegovy.

    The White House said in a fact sheet on Tuesday that it wanted to capture more savings for the government with the Medicare negotiation program than the Biden administration did last year. That would be difficult to do if Congress reduces the time during which Medicare can obtain lower prices.

    The executive order directs the Food and Drug Administration to improve the process by which states can apply to import lower-cost drugs from Canada.

    In his first term, Mr. Trump created a pathway enabling states to pursue these imports. Under the Biden administration, the F.D.A. approved one importation program, in Florida. As of late last year, Florida had not yet begun importing drugs from Canada. The pharmaceutical industry opposes the idea because it would cut into its profits.

    If Mr. Trump follows through on imposing tariffs on pharmaceuticals, importing drugs from Canada would be unlikely to offer the same savings as in the past.

    The order calls for rules to equalize the fees doctors are paid to administer drugs to patients across settings.

    Currently, many medical practices owned by hospitals can charge higher fees to Medicare than independent practices can, even for the exact same services. Because Medicare beneficiaries are often responsible for a percentage of their medical bills, those higher costs for the visits are passed along in the form of co-payments.

    Efforts to equalize such payments broadly have been under bipartisan discussion for years in Congress but have faced opposition from hospitals, who say they require the higher payments. Legislation passed during the Obama administration addressed some of these payment differences.

    Mr. Trump directed the F.D.A. to make recommendations for streamlining approvals for generic drugs and biosimilars, which are lower-priced copycats of biologic drugs.

    The first biosimilar was approved in 2015, with dozens more approved since. There was widespread hope that biosimilars would displace patent-protected brand-name biologics, such as Humira for conditions like arthritis, that sent drug costs soaring. But patients have been slow to switch over, and savings have not materialized as quickly as many wanted.

    Mr. Trump revived an executive order from his first term directing community health clinics to provide insulin and epinephrine injections at heavily discounted prices to certain lower-income people, including the uninsured.

    The clinics balked when Mr. Trump first proposed the idea in 2020. The Biden administration soon froze the regulation, saying it created too much of an administrative burden for the clinics.



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  • Jenner & Block, Law Firm Targeted by Trump, Files for Permanent Relief

    Jenner & Block, Law Firm Targeted by Trump, Files for Permanent Relief


    A big law firm that has come under attack by the Trump administration filed court papers on Tuesday seeking to permanently block an executive order that threatens its businesses and ability to represent clients in matters involving the federal government.

    The firm, Jenner & Block, filed the papers in federal court in Washington a little over a week after a judge approved a temporary restraining order against most of the provisions in the executive order.

    In its filing, Jenner & Block said that the executive order was “a plain violation of the First Amendment” and that it punished the firm for representing clients President Trump did not like.

    WilmerHale, another large law firm targeted by Mr. Trump, is expected to file its own action to oppose the administration’s order against it.

    The executive orders signed by Mr. Trump treat the law firms as national security risks. They would make it almost impossible for the firms to represent companies with government contracts or in need of regulatory approvals, and would prevent lawyers from even entering federal buildings — including courthouses.

    The filing by Jenner & Block is a motion for a summary judgment, meaning the firm is asking the judge presiding over its case to decide, without a trial, whether the order is constitutional and enforceable.

    The Trump administration has focused on firms that were involved in investigations of Mr. Trump and his first administration or that employ lawyers who have been critical of the president.

    The executive orders have been widely denounced as fundamentally limiting the ability of companies and individuals to hire any lawyer they please. But the legal profession has been hotly divided over how to respond to Mr. Trump, with several big law firms, including Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, cutting deals with the White House to avert a court battle. Those that have settled have said it was necessary to prevent big corporate clients from fleeing to other firms.

    One provision of the deals is that the firms will perform free legal work for causes the president supports. In effect, those firms are agreeing not to support public interest groups challenging administration policies.

    Some have pointed out that there have been no official government proclamations about the White House’s deals with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Willkie Farr & Gallagher; and Milbank. Rather, the agreements have been mentioned mainly in posts by Mr. Trump on his social media platform, Truth Social — making it unclear how binding they are.

    In its court filing, Jenner & Block said firms that had settled with the president had gone to him on “bended knee,” adding that the deals “advance not the interests of their own clients, but instead the government’s chosen agenda.”

    At a White House event on Tuesday, Mr. Trump suggested that some law firms that settle with the administration could be called on to help negotiate trade deals with countries he hit with tariffs. “We’re going to have to use those, those great law firms, I think, to help us with that,” he said.

    The same federal court has also received at least half a dozen amicus briefs in support of Perkins Coie, the first law firm to sue the Trump administration over an executive order that threatened its ability to represent clients. The latest were filed on Monday by a group of professional bar associations and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc.

    Last week, an amicus brief signed by 500 law firms was filed in the matter. But only a handful of the nation’s largest law firms signed on, leading to criticism that Big Law is unwilling to take a public stand against the Trump administration.

    The brief filed by the bar associations said Mr. Trump’s executive order against Perkins Coie was intended to “discourage other lawyers from daring to provide legal advocacy of which the president disapproves.”



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  • DOGE Demands Deep Cuts at Humanities Endowment

    DOGE Demands Deep Cuts at Humanities Endowment


    Leaders at the National Endowment for the Humanities have informed employees that the Trump administration is demanding deep cuts to staff and programs at the agency, in the latest move against federal agencies that support scholarship and culture.

    The move comes about three weeks after the agency’s leader, Shelly Lowe, who was appointed by President Biden, was pressed to resign, several months before her four-year term was over. Since then, a team including staff members from the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk’s government restructuring effort, have made several visits to the N.E.H. office.

    On Tuesday morning, managers told staff members that DOGE had recommended reductions in staff of as much as 70 to 80 percent (of approximately 180 people), as well as what could amount to a cancellation of all grants made under the Biden administration that have not been fully paid out, according to three staff members. Senior leadership, employees were told, would develop more detailed plans for what the cuts would look like in practice.

    A spokesman for the N.E.H. did not respond to a request for comment. The agency is currently led by an interim director, Michael McDonald, who is its general counsel.

    The N.E.H. was founded in 1965, under the same legislation as the National Endowment for the Arts. Since then, it has awarded more than $6 billion in grants to museums, historical sites, universities, libraries and other organizations, according to its website. Last year, its budget was $211 million.

    The endowment supports a variety of projects through direct grants. The most recent round, announced in January and totaling $26.6 million, included $175,000 for oral history projects connected to the Lahaina wildfire in Hawaii; $300,000 for digitization efforts at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens; and $150,000 for a study of online language learning at the Yiddish Book Center in Massachusetts.

    But it is also particularly important for the survival of state humanities councils, many of which derive all or most of their support from the 40 percent of the N.E.H. program funds that are channeled directly to them.

    In a statement issued on Tuesday, the National Humanities Alliance — an umbrella group of universities, museums, state councils and cultural organizations — said it was dismayed at the targeting of the only entity, federal or private, charged with making the humanities accessible to everyone.

    “DOGE is targeting a small federal agency that — with an annual appropriation that barely amounts to a rounding error in the U.S. budget — has a positive impact on every congressional district,” the statement said.

    The moves at the N.E.H. came a day after all employees at the Institute of Museum and Library Services, another independent federal agency, were put on administrative leave, setting the stage for a potential shutdown. That development drew widespread condemnation from public library supporters in particular, who noted that the agency, which has an annual budget of roughly $290 million, provided a third to half of the budgets of many state library boards.

    It remains unclear whether there will be similar cuts at the National Endowment for the Arts. In February, the N.E.A. announced that it was ending a small grant program aimed at projects for underserved groups and communities, though its larger general grant program, available to groups of all kinds, would continue.

    A spokesman for the N.E.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



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  • Trump Takes Aim at Smithsonian, Wading Into Race and Biology

    Trump Takes Aim at Smithsonian, Wading Into Race and Biology


    When President Trump issued an executive order claiming that the Smithsonian Institution had “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology,” he singled out a sculpture exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington.

    The exhibition, called “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture,” explores how, for more than 200 years, sculpture has both shaped and reflected attitudes about race in the United States.

    The president’s order noted, among other things, that the show “promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating ‘Race is a human invention.’”

    In interviews, several scholars questioned why the executive order appeared to take issue with that view, which is now broadly held. Samuel J. Redman, a history professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst who has written about scientific racism, said that “the executive order is troubling and out of step with the current consensus.” He added that pseudoscientific attempts to create a hierarchy of races with white people at the top were seen “in places like Nazi Germany or within the eugenics movement.”

    Asked for comment, the White House referred a reporter back to the executive order. Mr. Trump said in his inaugural address that he would stop efforts to “socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.”

    The quotation about race as a human invention appears to come from the wall text in the show, which notes that humans are “99.9 percent genetically the same” and introduces part of a statement on race and racism by the American Association of Biological Anthropologists.

    “Race does not provide an accurate representation of human biological variation,” the statement reads. “Humans are not divided biologically into distinct continental types or racial genetic clusters. Instead, the Western concept of race must be understood as a classification system that emerged from, and in support of, European colonialism, oppression, and discrimination.”

    “It thus does not have its roots in biological reality, but in policies of discrimination,” the statement says. “Because of that, over the last five centuries, race has become a social reality that structures societies and how we experience the world. In this regard, race is real, as is racism, and both have real biological consequences.”

    Mr. Trump’s executive order came after he moved to purge diversity, equity and inclusion measures.

    The executive order took issue with a number of other things about the show, including that it noted that societies, including the United States, had “used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement” and claimed that “sculpture has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism.”

    Museum officials declined to comment about the order and the show, which opened just a few days after the presidential election in early November to positive reviews and runs through Sept. 14.

    James Smalls, an art historian who advised the curators of the exhibition and wrote for its catalog, said there had been clear examples in the past of sculpture being used to suggest that some races were superior to others.

    He pointed to the 1930s bronze sculptures of Malvina Hoffman made for a “Races of Mankind” exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago that attempted to show “racial types” from around the world. (Hoffman, who died in 1966, was skeptical about the biological notions of race she was hired to illustrate, seeing her subjects as individuals, not types.) “By the time the exhibition was deinstalled more than 30 years later, more than 10 million people had seen it — as well as its misguided message that human physical differences could be categorized into distinct ‘races,’ ” the Field Museum wrote when it brought some back for a 2016 exhibition.

    Smalls said it was important to confront this part of history. “What bothers me most about the executive order is that it shuts down the whole conversation, not allowing for any discussion,” he said. “It also imposes that there is one view of American history, and that the country is a history of greatness. No country is great all the time.”

    Artists with sculptures in the show questioned the White House’s contention that it was divisive.

    Roberto Lugo, a 43-year-old Puerto Rican artist whose sculpture was featured in advertisements for the exhibition, said that the curators wanted to promote connection and understanding.

    “My art is not about divisiveness but trying to find my place in the world and connect with others and represent my culture, ancestry and community within the context of American history,” he said of his sculpture, which was made from a cast of his own body, painted in patterns that describe different aspects of his heritage. “I feel like the exhibition was an honest interpretation of people’s lived experiences.”

    Nicholas Galanin, a 45-year-old artist whose work is inspired by his Indigenous heritage, contributed a 2016 sculpture to the exhibition called “The Imaginary Indian (Totem Pole),” which includes a wooden totem disappearing into floral wallpaper.

    “Museums, monuments, and public institutions should be spaces where these stories are held with care, not suppressed for political convenience,” he said. “When we interrogate systems of power and challenge historical narratives that center whiteness and colonial dominance, we do not divide, we restore balance.”

    In an essay for the exhibition’s catalog, Stephanie Stebich, the museum’s director at the time, wrote that “our goal is to encourage visitors to feel invited into a transparent and honest dialogue about the histories of race, racism, and the role of sculpture, art history, and museums in shaping these stories.”



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  • What to Know About Trump’s Order Taking Aim at the Smithsonian

    What to Know About Trump’s Order Taking Aim at the Smithsonian


    President Trump issued an executive order this week criticizing the Smithsonian Institution for peddling what he described as a “divisive, race-centered ideology,” and calling to restore it to “its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness.”

    Here’s what to know about the Smithsonian, a sprawling network of federal museums that has been likened to America’s attic, and about the president’s order.

    The Smithsonian Institution was established in 1846, with funds bequeathed by James Smithson, a British scientist, for the creation in Washington of “an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”

    Today, it includes 21 museums, libraries, research centers and the National Zoo, many of them on the National Mall in Washington. They range from behemoths like the National Museum of Natural History and the National Air and Space Museum to small institutions like the Anacostia Community Museum, in the southeast part of the city.

    All Smithsonian museum sites except for the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City are free. Last year, they collectively drew nearly 17 million visitors.

    In his executive order, Mr. Trump claimed that the Smithsonian had in recent years “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology,” and that it promotes “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”

    Mr. Trump directed that Vice President JD Vance work with Congress to prohibit expenditures on exhibitions or programs that “degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law.”

    The Smithsonian, whose headquarters are in a turreted red-sandstone building known as the Castle, operates independently, as a public-private partnership. Since 2019, it has been led by Lonnie G. Bunch III, a historian who was the founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016.

    The Smithsonian is overseen by a 17-member Board of Regents, a mixture of Republicans and Democrats, drawn from government, business, medicine and academia. While the vice president, along with the chief justice of the United States, is a member of the board by law, the executive branch does not have authority over the institution.

    Six members of its board come from Congress: three senators and three members of the House of Representatives. Nine others are private citizens, nominated by the board and appointed to six-year terms by a joint congressional resolution, which the president then signs into law.

    The president has no direct role in appointing regents. But in the executive order, Mr. Trump called for Mr. Vance to work with the speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader, both Republicans, “to seek the appointment of citizen members to the Smithsonian Board of Regents committed to advancing the policy of this order.”

    The Smithsonian’s annual budget of just over $1 billion is paid for with a mix of federal money, appropriated by Congress, and private fund-raising. Last September, the institution began a $2.5 billion fund-raising campaign, set to culminate with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in July 2026.

    The Smithsonian’s budget is set by Congress, not the executive branch. But Mr. Trump has recently sought to gut some programs funded by Congress, which has invited court challenges. He could also call for eliminating spending in future budgets, but Congress would have to approve that step for it to go into effect.

    In 1994, the Smithsonian received strong criticism over a planned exhibition about the Enola Gay, the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. Some veterans groups and members of Congress assailed it as disrespectful to veterans, by paying what they saw as too much attention to the Japanese victims and to the postwar arms race.

    The museum revised the script, but the full exhibition, timed to the 50th anniversary of the bombing, was ultimately canceled. A simpler display, which included the fuselage of the Enola Gay with only a brief text with basic facts and a description of the plane’s restoration, went up later, stirring another round of protest from those who thought it erased the human impact.

    In 2023, some Republican Latino members of Congress threatened to withhold funding for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino, a new museum still in the development phase. They cited concerns that an inaugural exhibition in a temporary gallery gave “an erroneous and unbalanced” image of Latinos, portraying them only as victims of oppression.

    They later dropped their opposition after meeting with the museum’s director, Jorge Zamanillo, who agreed to make what he described as a “factual correction” in a label about a raft used by people fleeing Cuba that was on display.

    New museums have sometimes moved from being controversial to being wildly popular. The decades-long effort to create an African American history museum was initially strongly resisted by some Republicans in Congress. But it ultimately won strong bipartisan support, including from Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, who sponsored its founding legislation.

    Today, the museum is the third most visited in the Smithsonian network, with 1.6 million visitors in 2024, behind only the National Museum of Natural History (3.9 million) and the Air and Space Museum (1.9 million).

    Yes. In the pipeline are the Latino museum and the American Women’s History Museum, which were both authorized by Congress in 2020. Neither has been given a site yet, and there is still debate about whether either can be built directly on the National Mall in Washington, given a congressional ban on new construction in its core area.

    The Latino museum, like the African American history museum before it, has a temporary gallery in the National Museum of American History, on the Mall. The women’s history museum has begun creating online exhibitions, including a recent one about women’s entrepreneurship and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, which banned discrimination in lending. In his executive order, Mr. Trump called on the museum to make sure it does not “recognize men as women in any respect.”



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  • Trump Suffers Day of Losses in His Retribution Campaign Against Law Firms

    Trump Suffers Day of Losses in His Retribution Campaign Against Law Firms


    The Skadden Arps deal suggests negotiating may be getting more costly. Paul Weiss said it would provide $40 million in pro bono work, while the Skadden Arps agreement more than doubled that amount. The deals have also been met with scathing criticism by those in the legal community who see them as unnecessary capitulation in cases where the firms have the law on their side.

    On Thursday, after news broke that Skadden was seeking to strike a deal with the Trump administration, a group of alumni — all part of the law firm’s prestigious public interest fellowship program — began to circulate a letter. It urged the firm’s leadership to “take every measure to resist unlawful interference with the rule of law, to fight any unjust actions” and “to speak publicly about the critical, nonpartisan role of lawyers in defending democracy,” according to a copy of the letter reviewed by The New York Times.

    The letter, which organizers hope to deliver to Skadden’s leadership, has gathered nearly 400 signatures, according to two people familiar with the matter.

    Mr. Trump said Skadden Arps would provide legal services to veterans, members of the military and law enforcement, first responders, and state and local government officials. Their pro bono work, the White House said, would also involve legal issues surrounding antisemitism, and that in general, its pro bono work will “represent the full political spectrum.”

    For months, the president has railed against firms that he said refused to represent conservatives or their causes. His executive orders are intended to force them to do so.

    According to a fact sheet issued by the White House, Skadden Arps “will not deny representation to clients, such as members of politically disenfranchised groups, who have not historically received legal representation from major national law firms” because of the political views of the firm’s lawyers.

    On Wednesday, the president boasted about his track record of bringing big law firms to heel.

    “They’re all bending and saying, ‘Sir, thank you very much,’” Mr. Trump said, adding that they were asking, “‘Where do I sign? Where do I sign?’”

    Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Ben Protess contributed reporting from New York.



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  • Trump Orders Smithsonian to Promote ‘American Greatness’ in Executive Order

    Trump Orders Smithsonian to Promote ‘American Greatness’ in Executive Order


    “I think the document itself was wrong and flawed,” he told a Congressional oversight committee in 2023. “I do think, however, it’s important for the Smithsonian to help the country grapple with questions of race, so I’m not going to run away from that. But I agree with you very much that that document is not the kind of document that should be at the Smithsonian.”

    In the executive order, Mr. Trump claimed that the American Women’s History Museum, which is under development, “plans to celebrate male athletes participating in women’s sports.” The museum’s collections and digital exhibits include material about trans women, including the activist Sylvia Rivera, who helped lead the 1969 Stonewall rebellion, and the professional skateboarder Cher Strauberry, who donated one of her skate decks to the museum. But leaders have not released plans for the physical museum, which is still seeking a permanent space on the National Mall.

    Laura Raicovich, a former museum executive who wrote a book on the relationship between art, protest and politics, said that the new executive order was a powerful lesson in how governments seek to shape history.

    “The order itself is a clear example of the weaponization of language by the administration to undo the necessary historical correctives undertaken by knowledge institutions in recent years,” she said.

    Some historians are defending the Smithsonian, which is not just a public museum but also a highly respected research institution. James Grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association, the country’s largest group of professional historians, said the fact sheet accompanying the order “egregiously misrepresents the work of the Smithsonian.”

    “The historical scholarship in the Smithsonian is careful, honest and based on historical evidence,” he said. “Historians draw on that evidence to understand how our nation has evolved. That evolution includes elements that should make us proud. But also elements that we should not be proud of, but from which we should learn.”



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  • Under Pressure, Psychology Accreditation Board Suspends Diversity Standards

    Under Pressure, Psychology Accreditation Board Suspends Diversity Standards


    The American Psychological Association, which sets standards for professional training in mental health, has voted to suspend its requirement that postgraduate programs show a commitment to diversity in recruitment and hiring.

    The decision comes as accrediting bodies throughout higher education scramble to respond to the executive order signed by President Trump attacking diversity, equity and inclusion policies. It pauses a drive to broaden the profession of psychology, which is disproportionately white and female, at a time of rising distress among young Americans.

    The A.P.A. is the chief accrediting body for professional training in psychology, and the only one recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. It provides accreditation to around 1,300 training programs, including doctoral internships and postdoctoral residencies.

    Mr. Trump has made accrediting bodies a particular target in his crusade against D.E.I. programs, threatening in one campaign video to “fire the radical Left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics” and “accept applications for new accreditors.”

    Department of Justice officials have pressured accrediting bodies in recent weeks, warning the American Bar Association in a letter that it might lose its status unless it repealed diversity mandates. The A.B.A. voted in late February to suspend its diversity and inclusion standard for law schools.

    The concession by the A.P.A., a bastion of support for diversity programming, is a particular landmark. The association has made combating racism a central focus of its work in recent years, and in 2021 adopted a resolution apologizing for its role in perpetuating racism by, among other things, promulgating eugenic theories.

    Aaron Joyce, the A.P.A.’s senior director of accreditation, said the decision to suspend the diversity requirement was driven by “a large influx of concerns and inquiries” from programs concerned about running afoul of the president’s order.

    In many cases, he said, institutions had been instructed by their legal counsels to cease diversity-related activities, and were worried it might imperil their accreditation.

    “The Commission does not want to put programs in jeopardy of not existing because of a conflict between institutional guidelines” and accreditation standards, Dr. Joyce said.

    He would not describe the tally of the March 13 vote, which followed about three weeks of deliberation. “Nothing about this was an easy decision, and not taken lightly,” he said. “The understanding of individual and cultural diversity is a core facet of the practice of psychology.”

    The commission opted to retain another diversity-related standard: Programs must teach trainees to respect cultural and individual differences in order to treat their patients effectively. In reviewing each standard, the commission weighed “what may put programs in a compromised position” against “what is essential to the practice of psychology that simply cannot be changed,” he said.

    A spokesman for the Department of Justice said the A.P.A. had taken a good step, but would have to take further steps to eliminate diversity mandates, which he said “encourage or require illegal discrimination.”

    “Suspension is a welcome development, but it is not nearly enough,” said the spokesman. “These kinds of rules are unlawful and have no place in a society that values individuals for their character.”

    Kevin Cokley, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, said he was “absolutely devastated” to learn of the A.P.A.’s decision on a psychology listserv this week.

    “Frankly, I think the decision is really unconscionable, given what we know of the importance of having diverse mental health providers,” Dr. Cokley said. “I don’t know how the A.P.A. can make this sort of decision and think that we are still maintaining the highest standards of training.”

    He said he thought the A.P.A. had acted prematurely, and could have waited until it faced a direct challenge from the administration.

    “I think that there is always a choice,” he said. “I think this is a classic example of the A.P.A. engaging in anticipatory compliance. They made the move out of fear of what might happen to them.”

    According the data from the A.P.A., the psychology work force is disproportionately white. In 2023, more than 78 percent of active psychologists were white, 5.5 percent were Black, 4.4 percent were Asian and 7.8 percent were Latino. (The general population is around 58 percent white, 13.7 percent Black, 6.4 percent Asian and 19.5 percent Latino.)

    The demographic breakdown of graduate students in Ph.D. programs, in contrast, is more in line with the country. According to 2022 data from the A.P.A., 54 percent of doctoral students were white, 10 percent were Black, 10 percent were Asian and 11 percent Latino.

    John Dovidio, a professor emeritus of psychology at Yale and the author of “Unequal Health: Anti-Black Racism and the Threat to America’s Health,” said the A.P.A.’s focus on diversity in recruiting had played a major part in that change.

    “It really is something that departments take very, very seriously,” he said. “I have seen the impact personally.”

    A memorandum announcing the decision describes it as an “interim action while awaiting further court guidance” on Mr. Trump’s executive order, which was upheld by a federal court of appeals on March 13. The order, it says, “is currently law while litigation is pending.”

    Cynthia Jackson Hammond, the president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, which coordinates more than 70 accreditation groups, said it is “unprecedented” for such bodies to receive direct orders from the government.

    “The government and higher education have always worked independently, and in good faith with each other,” she said. “Throughout the decades, what we have had is a healthy separation, until now.”

    The federal government began taking a role in accreditation after World War II, as veterans flooded into universities under the G.I. Bill. Accrediting bodies are regularly reviewed by the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, which advises the Secretary of Education on whether to continue to recognize them.

    But government officials have never used this leverage to impose ideological direction on higher education, Ms. Jackson Hammond said. She said diversity in recruitment remains a serious challenge for higher education, which is why the standard is still so commonly used.

    “If we think about what our institutions looked like before,” she said, “that might be a barometer of what it’s going to look like if there’s not attention paid.”



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