Poisoned History

Poisoned History

By Lawrence W. Reed

(Published in the Newnan Times-Herald in Newnan, Georgia on September 2, 2026.)

Dr. Jody Edward Ginn is a Texas historian and museum professional. When he learned about how the taxpayer-funded Smithsonian Institution in Washington has distorted American history to showcase left-wing ideologies, he decided to go find out for himself how bad it is.

It’s worse than he expected.

At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, he was appalled at what he saw. He told a major news outlet, “It is a museum for activism. They use history, but that’s kind of the problem…I don’t consider these folks scholars anymore. They’re activists.”

Who knew that to tell American history to visiting families requires “graphic, sexually explicit” exhibits, factual errors that promote transgender ideology and other pet causes and victimologies of the far Left, and deliberate omissions of important information that would celebrate American achievement? Why is it that everything the Left touches turns to, well, you know the word.

The black minister and author Earl Walker Jackson, a descendant of enslaved ancestors, had the same reaction when he checked out the once-honorable museum. What he saw, he said, “amounts to anti-American indoctrination against the greatest nation on earth.”

Jackson went on to say, “This is a wonderful country…and you’ve got people so indoctrinated into seeing our country sliced and diced into race and ethnicity and class and income and so forth that they fail to understand the blessing of the United States of America.”

Knowledge of history among American middle- and high school students has been declining for years. Fewer than 20 percent of eighth graders score at or above proficiency level, according to data from the National Assessment of Education Progress. Now you know one of the reasons why. The same poison that taints the Smithsonian is at work in the schools, and especially in the universities that teach the teachers who teach in the schools.

For 30 years, I lived in a town in Michigan almost identical in size to Newnan. Local folks were proud of the local schools, which were certainly a cut above those in inner city Detroit. But I also have vivid memories of plenty of nonsense coming out of the local classrooms. The schools were nowhere near as good as parents thought they were, but they never really checked in on what their kids were learning (or not learning). When I did, I was appalled at the one-sidedness. Teachers who said they were “objective” and “unbiased” were often just the opposite (and the textbooks were worse), but they were good at convincing the community of how good and fair they were. Some teachers didn’t even realize how biased they were because they never heard but one side.

If you’re wondering how New York City could elect a mayor committed to the historic disaster called socialism, maybe what’s being taught there in the schools explains a lot. Don’t count on The New York Times to check into what the city schools teach because if it’s left-wing indoctrination, the Times is perfectly OK with it.

A country that uses its tax dollars to distort and vilify its own history is likely to embrace stupid ideas and elect a lot of bad people. The Smithsonian, unfortunately, is just the tip of the iceberg.

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(Lawrence W. Reed, a resident of Newnan, is president emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education in Atlanta. His forthcoming book, Born of Ideas: How Principles, Faith, and Courage Forged America, is available now on Amazon.)