The Smithsonian took over a billion dollars a year from American taxpayers and declared DEI "integral to all aspects" of its mission.
They announced compliance and shut down the Office of Diversity after Donald Trump signed an executive order telling them to stop.
But the Smithsonian Zoo defied Donald Trump and kept running “Gay Day” on the taxpayers dime.
The Zoo That Put Politics Ahead of Pandas
The Smithsonian's National Zoo published it in black and white.
"Diversity and inclusion are integral to all aspects of the Smithsonian Institution's operations and key components of the Smithsonian Strategic Plan," the 2023 Smithsonian Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives Report states.
Two million Americans visit that zoo every year.
They paid for it.
The zoo's own website linked gender equity directly to climate change – arguing that addressing health and education inequities around the globe is "one direct way we can bolster climate action."
That's not conservation science.
https://twitter.com/foxnewspolitics/status/2092900639043166276?s=20
That's a political manifesto with pandas in the background.
Search "climate change" on the zoo's website and you get nearly 400 results.
Not animal health results.
Not habitat results.
Climate ideology results.
Rainbow Ice Cakes for the Animals – Paid for by You
The zoo hosted what outside groups openly called "Gay Day at the Zoo" – an annual event featuring rainbow-themed animal enrichment, colorful ice cakes for animals throughout the park, and performances by an LGBTQ youth chorus.
The zoo called it "International Family Equality Day."
The outside groups didn't bother with the polite name.
The zoo partnered with DC Center for the LGBTQ Community, SMYAL, Rainbow Families, and the Smithsonian Pride Alliance for the 2024 version of the event.
Your federal tax dollars funded the venue.
Your federal tax dollars paid the staff.
Jason Hayes, a senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation's Center for Energy, Climate and Environment, explained exactly what happens when ideology takes over a scientific institution.
"When ideologies, or at least science that is in question, start to take over and really rule the management of an organization like the zoo, then you start to have problems," Hayes told Fox News Digital.
That's the polite version.
They Announced Compliance – Then Kept Every Program Running
In March 2025, Trump signed an executive order titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," directing the elimination of "divisive or anti-American ideology" from Smithsonian museums, education centers, and the zoo.
The Smithsonian announced in January 2025 it was eliminating its Office of Diversity.
https://twitter.com/Kentuckygirl1/status/2092950505873924431?s=20
Problem solved, right?
Wrong.
As of this week, work profiles on the zoo's website still contain language saying DEI is part of their daily activities.
The zoo's Great Plains Science Program still lists "Inclusion" among its core values.
The Smithsonian's accreditation partner, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, still has DEI "embedded in everything we do" on its website – and the zoo must meet AZA standards to keep its accreditation.
They shut down the office.
They kept the ideology.
This is the same playbook Heritage Foundation researchers documented at universities nationwide – rename the office, keep the mission, wait for the pressure to pass.
A Billion Dollars and a Decolonial Lens
Here's the number that should make your blood boil.
The Smithsonian pulled in more than $1 billion a year in federal funding during the Biden years – climbing from $960 million in 2019 to a record $1.24 billion request in fiscal 2024.
The National Zoo alone received roughly $34 million in the most recent federal proposal.
And the zoo wasn't just working with the AZA.
It was also partnered with the Zoological Society of London's FAIRER Conservation program – a program that explicitly uses what it calls a "decolonial lens" and aims to embed "justice, equity and inclusion" in conservation work.
Your money.
Their decolonial lens.
Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III – the man who said DEI "must be at the center" of museum institutions – collected more than $4.4 million in salary and benefits between 2020 and 2024.
https://twitter.com/GioBruno1600/status/2093005624195870957?s=20
Trump has now proposed cutting the Smithsonian's budget below $1 billion for the first time since 2020.
Gabriella Hoffman of the Independent Women's Forum said it plainly: "The zoo should stick to showcasing pandas, not pandering to radicals."
She's right – and the budget cut proves Trump agrees.
Americans don't take their grandkids to the zoo to get lectured about systemic racism and climate justice.
They go to see the animals.
The people running the National Zoo decided your tax dollars were better spent on rainbow ice cakes and a decolonial lens than on the animals in their care.
Trump just started making that expensive.
Sources:
- Andrew Mark Miller, "Gender equity, DEI, climate action: How the Smithsonian's woke push 'infiltrated' America's most beloved zoo," Fox News Digital, August 27, 2026.
- Fox News Digital, "IN CHARTS: A visual breakdown of the Smithsonian's billion-dollar taxpayer-funded budget," Fox News, August 2026.
- Fox News Digital, "Trump v. Smithsonian: A timeline of how the White House fight over 'woke' history unfolded," Fox News, August 2026.
- Jason Hayes, Senior Research Fellow, Heritage Foundation Center for Energy, Climate and Environment, quoted in Fox News Digital, August 27, 2026.
- Heritage Foundation, "DEI Is a Threat to the Republic," July 15, 2026.