“I was incredulous. Really?” That was Kim Sajet’s take when her former Smithsonian colleague, Anthea M. Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History, was subjected to hostile questioning during a congressional hearing last week, according to a new interview with The New York Times.
“I could see that it was going to become a real witch hunt,” she continued. “I didn’t wish that on my colleagues and I didn’t wish that on the Smithsonian.”
Sajet is nearly a year past her decision to step down as director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery after President Donald Trump announced his intention to fire her. She’s in the Midwest instead, having started a new stint as director of the Milwaukee Art Museum in September.
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About Sajet and Hartig, the Times quoted Steven Conn, a professor at Miami University who focuses on American cultural history, saying: “There is something unusual about the vitriol that was so personally directed.”
Sajet said she objected to the nature of yes/no questions asked of Hartig. “Wouldn’t it be lovely if history was that black and white? There is always nuance,” she said. “But they don’t want to hear the context. They want the sound bite, they want to get the score.”
She also defended Hartig’s work, as well as her own: “The Museum of American History doesn’t make the history—they’re just reporting on what’s happened. That’s what I did as the director of the Portrait Gallery. We didn’t say whether so-and-so’s actions were good or bad. We just said, ‘This is what they did.’”
Sajet said she texted Hartig sympathetically after last week’s hearing, and added: “Having to sit for congressional testimony is not what you expect when you apply for the job.”