• The Institute of Museum and Library Services’s new grant guidelines specifically cite President Donald Trump’s stated vision for U.S. culture. 
• Previously, grant applications were evaluated by merit, on an apolitical basis. 
• The agency was gutted by the Department of Government Efficiency last year, but revived following a lawsuit. 

Want to get a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)? The agency is recommending brushing up on President Donald Trump’s executive orders, to make sure your application aligns with his vision for U.S. culture.

The cover letter inviting institutions to apply for IMLS grants encourages applicants to read several of Trump’s orders, including “Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again,” which requires government buildings be built in classical style, and “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which attempts to control the content of exhibitions and programming from the Smithsonian Institution.

When IMLS says it is seeking “uplifting and positive narratives of our shared American experience,” that echoes Trump’s language slamming the Smithsonian for focusing on negative aspects of U.S. history such as slavery and discrimination faced by women and minority groups.

In an op-ed for Artnet News last May, Marilyn Jackson, the president and CEO of the American Alliance of Museums, expressed her concerns about the future of U.S. institutions under Trump, noting that “museums may be forced to retreat from their most basic and precious function: capturing the past as it actually happened and the present as it actually is.”

Seeing the new IMLS guidelines, Giovanna Urist, a senior program officer at the agency from 2021 to 2023, told ProPublica that the new guidelines were “chilling” and that “the administration has a very specific goal in mind when it comes to controlling the voice of organizations and museums across the country.”

The letter also specifically seems to warn against any pro-Palestinian grant applications by suggesting “applicants may find it helpful” to check out Trump’s “Additional Measures to Combat AntiSemitism” and “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias” orders. And it follows the elimination of dedicated grants for underserved communities, in favor of projects celebrating the 250th anniversary of the U.S., at the National Endowment for the Arts.

But on one level, one could say that it is a positive thing that there are IMLS grants at all this year. Last March, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) attempted to gut the agency. Trump even issued an executive order to eliminate it. Attorneys General from 21 states fired back with a lawsuit, with a federal court ultimately forcing the government to reinstate all canceled grants.