WATCH: Smithsonian director admits she sees history as ‘tool’ of ‘social justice’ after explosive hearing

After an explosive series of congressional hearings on alleged woke “ideological capture” at the Smithsonian, a resurfaced video of a presentation by National Museum of American History Director Anthea Hartig shows her calling “history as a practice” a “prime tool of social justice.”

In a series of July hearings on Capitol Hill, Hartig defended the Smithsonian’s record of objectivity and nonpartisanship. However, in a resurfaced presentation to University of California, Los Angeles students in February 2025, Hartig described “a number of ways in which your National Museum of American History is taking an equity-based, justice forward, community driven and necessarily humble approach to public history and to service.”

Later in her presentation, Hartig asserted that the “United States’ long and violent racial history continues to be present in our reckoning, if you will.”

She said that “redress in the form of reparation, of course, goes beyond acknowledgement of wrongdoing; it should leverage responsibility, it should think about the act of correction, as we pursue restorative justice and, for us [on the call], restorative justice through history.”

“We are tellers of stories and seekers of truths, hopefully embracers of nuance, ambassadors of empathy and defenders of inalienable rights,” she said.

Fox News Digital reached out to the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian Institution, Black Lives Matter and Tsuru for Solidarity for comment.