Republicans are still against DEI and woke politics, right?
That was certainly the message voters heard during the 2024 election. Since returning to power in 2025, the Trump administration has made rolling back DEI mandates a centerpiece of its agenda.
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And it’s one of the many parts of the Trump agenda that I, along with millions of other conservatives, voted for.
Which is why I was more than a little surprised to learn that most Republicans in Congress were pushing legislation to advance the construction of a Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.
To be clear, I’m not arguing women shouldn’t be recognized for their contributions in American history.
Women have shaped this country from the very beginning, defending its freedoms and values with their lives, and will continue to play an important role in our nation’s identity.
Republicans cannot spend years condemning DEI and insisting America should be colorblind and merit-based, only to suddenly embrace a taxpayer-funded project organized around gender.
In virtually every museum already administered by the Smithsonian Institution, the accomplishments of women are prominently featured. Visit the National Museum of American History, the National Air and Space Museum, or the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and you will quickly find women fully integrated into the American story.
Was Sally Ride excluded from aerospace history because of her gender? Was Amelia Earhart denied recognition?
Is Georgia O’Keeffe missing from art museums? Are Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt or America’s First Ladies somehow erased from the Smithsonian system?
Of course not.
Their achievements are recognized because they earned their place in history, not because they belonged to a particular demographic.
That raises a question for Republicans: If conservatives truly oppose dividing Americans by race and sex, why are they supporting institutions built around exactly those distinctions?
After all, the Smithsonian already operates museums centered around racial identity, including the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Why expand the model further?
Even more concerning is who would shape the museum itself. Republicans seem eager to authorize and fund an institution they almost certainly will not control for long.
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The museum’s advisory boards feature a slew of prominent Democratic donors, including tennis legend Billie Jean King, actress Lynda Carter, designer Tory Burch, and businesswoman Penny Pritzker. There is also a committee of scholars filled with professors immersed in gender studies programs.
Why would Republicans willingly create another taxpayer-funded institution dominated by the very ideological forces they claim to oppose?
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), one of the museum’s leading advocates, attempted to reassure conservatives by touting an amendment clarifying that only biological women could be featured in the museum. Does anyone seriously believe Republicans will control Congress, the White House, and the Smithsonian bureaucracy forever?
If Kamala Harris had won the 2024 election and her administration came to Congress asking taxpayers to bankroll a $375 million museum centered around gender identity, Republicans would have been storming microphones and going wall-to-wall on cable news warning about the dangers of woke politics.
And frankly, they would have been right to do so.
The Republican Party has presented itself as the party of merit and a shared American identity, not one fractured into categories. At least that was the sales pitch in the last election.
Apparently, that principle now comes with exceptions.
What makes this so frustrating is that Republicans were handed a historic opportunity in 2024 to push back against the very identity politics poisoning American institutions. Voters were told the era of DEI bureaucracies and endless demographic segmentation was finally coming to an end.
Yet here we are: conservatives now championing a museum organized entirely around sex-based identity politics.
America does not need more institutions encouraging citizens to view themselves through immutable characteristics. We do not need more government-backed projects reinforcing the idea that our history must be carved into separate lanes based on race, sex, or ethnicity.
If anything, Republicans should have stopped this project in its tracks instead of helping advance what may become the largest taxpayer-funded identity politics project ever planted on or near the National Mall.
As America approaches its 250th anniversary, our history should be told the way it actually happened: together. Men and women built this country together. They fought wars together, governed, sacrificed, failed and succeeded together.
Conservatives spent years warning Americans that identity politics would eventually consume every major institution in public life.
Now, some Republicans are volunteering to build the museum for it.
Jacob Lane is a Republican strategist and commentator whose work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, and Newsmax.
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Image: Smithsonian