The Smithsonian’s ongoing exhibition, Entertainment Nation, at the National Museum of American History has come under renewed scrutiny amid allegations of ideological bias. A Fox News Digital review found that every member of the exhibit’s seven-person curatorial team has incorporated themes of racial injustice, gender inequality, sexuality, or other progressive social causes into their academic work or public commentary.

Entertainment Nation, which opened in December 2022, uses artifacts from music, film, television, theater, and sports to explore how popular culture has shaped American life. The exhibit’s lead curator, John Troutman, told The Washington Post in 2023 that the project was designed to examine broader social movements reflected in popular culture rather than to serve as "a gallery that provides a history of entertainment."

Curator Kenneth Cohen authored the 2017 book They Will Have Their Game, which examines how the development of sports in the United States "produced a sense of democracy while also reinforcing racial, gender, and class divisions," according to his publisher.

The controversy intensified in July 2026 amid a congressional hearing scrutinizing the National Museum of American History and the release of a 162-page White House report documenting what the administration described as evidence of ideological bias across the Smithsonian. Fox News Digital’s review noted praise for communist-linked figures, alignment with progressive activist movements, and explicit statements connecting museum work to social justice.

The debate highlights a pattern among museum curators whose academic and professional focus on race, gender, sexuality, and social justice themes has fueled accusations of ideological bias at the Smithsonian.

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