DEI in Texas Museums
Last summer, the Texas State Library and Archives, stewards of everything from the Travis Letter to Gov. Connally’s ill-fated 1963 suit, cut ties with the American Library Association because the latter’s new president was a self-described Marxist. A win for Texas.
Last year, the Texas Legislature passed a ban on DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) departments and requirements in our state universities. It went into effect January 1 and some colleges are dismantling those departments. Others are trying to sidestep the law. This is still a work in progress but could be a win for Texas.
Also last year, the Texas Historical Commission implemented a policy to sell only history books at their history sites, after my now-infamous inquiries about their retail policies. The feminism and radical decolonization books on state shelves have been replaced by credible, solid history books. A win for Texas history.
All in all, 2023 shaped up to be the year the State of Texas rejected the Current Thing™, with one glaring exception: our state history museum.
Imagine a world in which the Bullock State History Museum can’t get artifacts on loan from other museums because they haven’t hired enough (insert group identity here) or demonstrated sufficient fealty to diversity/equity/inclusion. No, we’re not there yet but it’s not implausible. Here’s why:
The Bullock, which operates under the auspices of the State Preservation Board, touts its accreditation by the American Alliance for Museums. Seems harmless enough, maybe even positive. Accreditation means we’re certifably good, right? Yes if your definition of “good” includes not just competence but a pledge to embrace DEI throughout your museum.
Since at least 2017, the nonprofit American Alliance of Museums has been workshopping and toolkitting the hell out of DEI for museums, issuing reports and best practices. At first it addressed diversity within AAM’s leadership. Next, it expanded to address the diversity of the boards of member museums, like the Bullock. Then, with $4m in grants from the Mellon, Walton & Ford Foundations, AAM dialed it up to eleven, eventually announcing that their DEI tenets must be embedded at every level - from volunteers to board members - and in every facet of a member museum’s operations.
From AAM’s report, “Excellence in DEAI”
Ironically, the same organization that’s mandating DEI for its member museums calls its pre-accreditation program “The Continuum of Excellence.” DEI policies have proven time and again to be the enemy of excellence. They deprive people of their individual strengths and weaknesses, distilling them down to a group identity and squashing incentives for everyone to get better at what they do. But I digress…
In October 2022, American Alliance of Museums announced that adherence to their DEI standards would become a requirement of their accreditation process. In November 2022, the Bullock applied for their reaccreditation. (This is done every ten years). To what extent DEI was required, I don’t know but I do know they were up to the challenge.
Since 2016, the Bullock has been under the leadership of Ms. Margaret Koch. Her tenure coincided with social upheaval and a pandemic and, to her credit, the Bullock survived. The museum is largely sustained by donations, grants and sales/rental revenues. In 2023, for example, it received about $1.5m in taxpayer funds of its $7m budget.
That said, let’s consider Ms. Koch’s DEI bonafides.
In 2020, the folks at our state history museum received 450 staff hours of communications and DEI training, courtesy of federal funding.
In 2021, Director Koch contributed an article to AAM’s blog in which she, in part, outlines the struggle between the desire for diversity and the desire to promote from within with a mostly white staff. She created a DEI committee at the Bullock, still active as far as I’m aware. She presently serves on the board of the American Association for State & Local History (AASLH), yet another museum-related organization that’s pledged its soul to DEI. Full disclosure: AAM and AASLH have both editorialized about the “book bans” at Texas historic sites. I was talking with museum professionals and working on this story long before that controversy was even a twinkle in its daddy’s eye.
She presided over of the Texas Association of Museums from 2021-23. TAM follows the edicts of AAM. Bullock director Koch remains a member of their DEI affinity group.
Ms. Koch contributed a chapter to a 2021 book by a group of professors who exist to repeat talking points about the Texas Rangers and what they claim is serial racial violence. In 2016 the Bullock featured their sloppy work as an exhibit. Ms. Koch opens her chapter in their book by citing the American Alliance of Museums’ Code of Ethics, emphasizing how the Bullock adheres to the standards of that organization.
In 2021, the Bullock planned to co-host the guys who wrote Forget The Alamo, in a program called ReWriting History. (For the record, I was in favor of that event if the authors would take the non-moderated audience questions they’d avoided at all previous events.)
The Bullock is not alone, obviously. Space Center Houston and the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History are now led by folks actively involved in AAM’s DEI directives. The Perot Museum, the Witte, and Holocaust Museum participated in AAM’s nationwide initiative to apply DEI to their boards and leadership. There are more in Texas. How could there not be?
So, what’s it all mean?
It means our state history museum taking its “best practices” (read: professional and moral compass) from the American Alliance of Museums is no bueno.
One of the ways AAM justifies the thousands it charges for accreditation plus annual dues, and the way The Bullock justifies paying, is AAM’s claim that doing so improves a museum’s chances of borrowing artifacts from other member institutions. Not all museums own the artifacts they display. The Bullock doesn’t. It borrows them. So it’s not hard to envision a scenario in which The Bullock decouples from AAM and receives the stink-eye from other museums, NOT because they were bad stewards of historical objects but because they opted out of DEI.
Our state history museum should be concerned with presenting the Texas story, with nuance and accuracy, without the activist assistance of the American Alliance of Museums. Will the State Preservation Board continue to enable DEI embedded in every aspect of the state history museum?
Texas History Trust is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that runs on donations from concerned Texans & history lovers like you.
