Those familiar with my annual forecasts know that this time of year is important to me for reflection and thinking about what is ahead. For those of us located in the United States, we knew this year potentially held seismic changes for the museum field. My 2025 predictions centered on areas we knew would be a challenge and, unfortunately, we weren’t wrong.
It’s been an extremely difficult year for many in the US museum field. While it is admittedly a daunting task to take stock of the year, I still believe it’s incredibly necessary for us to move forward with informed resilience.
In this post, we’ll review my predictions from Museum Forecast 2025: The Words We Use and evaluate how the events of 2025 have shaped the year.
A Recap of the Museum 2025 Forecast
To begin, the 2025 forecast was unusual from my previous forecasts because all three fell under a similar theme: The Words We Use.
My forecast is that this year (and likely years plural) will see cultural institutions in the United States and abroad grapple with intensified and politically-motivated examination. Museum administration, programs, catalog content, and exhibits will be impacted at an unprecedented level, and the field as a whole will find itself scrambling to find equilibrium. More specifically, the words we use as we conduct museum business will increasingly fall under intense scrutiny by politicians and politically-engaged citizens.
From this overarching theme, I highlighted the following three areas:
- DEI Programs Will Shutter or Evolve
- Museums Will Increasingly Engage in Self-Censorship
- Pluralism/Bridgey Words Concepts Will Increasingly Appear
Below are the three forecasts and a summary of their contents in italics. An assessment of how things actually played out follows each forecast.
2025 Forecast #1: DEI Programs will Shutter or Evolve
My forecast: DEI programs will be forced to close or undergo an evolution. The extent of change will depend on the state; however, the threat of consequences from multiple fronts may motivate some DEI programs to proactively adapt.
How My Forecast for DEI Programs Actually Played Out
There was little time to plan or adapt in 2025. Beginning in January 2025, Executive Orders (EOs) targeting DEI-related programs, policies, and mandates were issued at the federal level. With this, we saw the shuttering or extreme reduction of federal agencies seen to embody DEI values, including:
- A March 2025 EO regarding the elimination of the Institute for Museum and Library Services;
- The proposed elimination of the National Endowment for Humanities in the 2026 federal budget; and
- The abrupt dismissal of staff and the cutoff of grant funding from these agencies (both granted and forecasted).
The damage did not stop at the federal level. Punitive litigious actions and political pressure saw the removal of DEI departments and program closures at the highest echelons of academia and corporate behemoths. The independence of these entities had little bearing and institutions once thought to be untouchable in their autonomy were compelled to alter course.
Even for museums that don’t rely on federal funding directly, the coordinated rollback of DEI initiatives and slashing of federal supports for programs perceived to embody DEI values have a trickle-down effect.
For a Deeper Dive
For more on this topic, please see my previous coverage of the American Alliance of Museums: Museum TrendsWatch 2025: Facing the DEI Backlash (June 18, 2025).
2025 Forecast #2: Museums Will Increasingly Engage in Self-Censorship
My forecast: Museums will increasingly struggle internally to create exhibits, catalogs, and other content that meets field-wide best practices; while the museum administration is focused on avoiding the provocation of negative reactions. Overall, there will be an increase in self-censorship while museums attempt to arrive at an equilibrium.
How My Forecast for Self-Censorship in Museums Actually Played Out
Predictions of self-censorship gave way to direct forms of censorship. Censorship of museum exhibitions and historical sites began early in 2025 and intensified significantly over the summer. In March, the White House released an EO entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” This was quickly followed with the Secretary of the Interior issuing a May 20 order directing NPS to revise their interpretive signage by September.
The scope and extent of the revisions are substantial. For example, Muir Woods National Monument has officially removed the historical context related to women’s contributions and the acknowledgement of racist ideologies held by key figures. As museum professionals, we know how critically important it is to tell a complete, complex, and utterly human narrative. Not just “for history,” but for all people, past and present.
There are dozens of museum censorship cases that have played out across the US this year. Instead of repeating them here, I want to share what our professional community is doing about it.
Here is how our colleagues are helping to preserve and protect our collective history:
- The National Council on Public History, Organization of American Historians (OAH), the American Historical Association, and countless others took a stand against government efforts to undermine historical integrity. Read the statement and take action.
- Data Rescue Project (DRP): In reaction to the Burgman order, the DRP announced a #SaveOurSigns initiative. The goal of the initiative is to create a record of the non-sanitized interpretive signs at NPS trails, monuments, exhibits, etc., so that this information can be preserved should this history actually disappear.
- OAH: With federal websites and archives changing rapidly, the OAH is tracking threats to historical transparency through the Records at Risk Initiative.
- Webrecorder: Mirrored sites like Webrecorder host an archive of federal website content from the transition period between the Biden and Trump administrations. This is a good source to check whether government sites have changed and how.
- Archive Team: Affiliated with Archive.org, Archive Team has an ambitious set of projects to archive the internet, including US government websites.
- Data Hoarders: The r/DataHoarder subreddit is a collective of individuals doing what they can to capture online history. The subreddit is a great place for information, resources, and ideas on how you can help.
For a Deeper Dive
At Relicura, we have written quite a bit about this topic and the censorship-driven efforts that have transpired across the US museum and archival institutions this year. Please see our posts (not sponsored by Lucidea) over at Relicura.com for a deeper dive:
- “Fire” at the National Archives (March 2025)
- History—A “working draft” (April 2025)
- Disappearing Ink—The continued erasure of our Nation’s history (August 2025)
2025 Forecast #3: Pluralism/Bridgey Words Concepts Will Increasingly Appear
My forecast: Pluralism and similar concepts like bridgey words will increasingly appear in the field. The 2024 Future of Museums Summit, held by the American Alliance of Museums solidified this with dedicating a track to “Culture Wars”, and I suspect will further invest in the topic at the 2025 annual conference with the theme of “Museums & Trust”. This year will be a struggle as museum staff learn about a political philosophy and its application to our work, but at least there will be significant focus on it by professional organizations.
How My Predictions for Pluralism Actually Played Out in 2025
The EOs aimed at the museum field impacted the industry before much of any self-initiated incorporation of pluralism and the use of bridgey words could be explored. The effect of the EOs has been polarizing. In some instances, we see museums remain staunch in their convictions regarding the content they share and the words they use, while others have (directly and indirectly) been called to soften their language to the point of perceived censorship.
Currently in a reactionary mode, the museum field has not had a chance to reflect, create, or implement a pluralistic approach. It is an area we’ll all need to become conversant in, even with the most optimistic projections of where the field will be in a few years.
An Institutional Response Example
For one of my favorite examples of a museum’s response to censorship pressures, please see the Japanese American National Museum’s press release from April 3, 2025. The museum encouraged public support through its “Scrub Nothing” campaign.
The Need to Take Stock
While I knew the impact of this year would be huge, I think very few of us realized just how swift and all-encompassing the changes of a new(ish) US presidential administration would be. It can be difficult to take stock, especially with so much disruption to a field previously known as steadfast and stalwart. Yet, this accounting is crucial for us to understand where the damage lies, and it offers a starting point for where we might build something better and more resilient.
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