How Do Museums Resist Censorship?

Censorship is a worsening challenge, as a March 2025 executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” takes aim at museums, parks, and other institutions in an effort to revise and reshape how America presents its history and culture. What can museums do when the state imposes revisionist history on them? Can curation be a form of self-censorship? Is censorship ever good? And what have museums done to protect their freedom of expression and the separation between art and state?

Zócalo, JANM, and MOCA co-present a discussion at the top of L.A.’s art week: American Alliance of Museums board chair and museum director Devon Akmon, JANM president and CEO Ann Burroughs, and The Brick director and MONUMENTS co-curator Hamza Walker will discuss how museums resist the erasure and revision of our history and culture, and what this means for how we document our shared past, present, and future.

Moderated by Elizabeth Larison, Director, Arts and Culture Advocacy Program, National Coalition Against Censorship