President Donald Trump fired the director of the National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet, for being a “strong supporter” of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
Trump announced the termination in a post on Truth Social on Friday afternoon.
“Upon the request and recommendation of many people, I am hereby terminating the employment of Kim Sajet as Director of the National Portrait Gallery,” the president wrote. “She is a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI, which is totally inappropriate for her position. Her replacement will be named shortly. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
A White House official told Fox News Digital that Sajet had donated $3,982 to Democrats, including presidential campaigns for former President Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. Sajet also reportedly donated to other Democrats, including former Vice President Kamala Harris.
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The White House also pointed to the gallery’s photo of Trump, which was curated by Sajet. The caption of the photo reads, “Impeached twice, on charges of abuse of power and incitement of insurrection after supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, he was acquitted by the Senate in both trials. After losing to Joe Biden in 2020, Trump mounted a historic comeback in the 2024 election. He is the only president aside from Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) to have won a nonconsecutive second term.”
The White House official also said it was ironic that Sajet said, “We try very much not to editorialise. I don’t want by reading the label to get a sense of what the curator’s opinion is about that person. I want someone reading the label to understand that it’s based on historical fact.”
The National Portrait Gallery did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the matter.
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According to the National Portrait Gallery website, Sajet was the first woman to serve as the director of the National Portrait Gallery, and she spent time in the role looking for ways to put her experience and creativity at the center of learning and civic awareness.
Prior to taking the position, Sajet was the president and CEO of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and held other positions at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Her biography notes that she was born in Nigeria, was raised in Australia and is a citizen of the Netherlands. She came to the U.S. with her family in 1997.
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While speaking at the Richardson Symposium: Racial Masquerade in American Art and Culture, at the National Portrait Museum on Nov. 4, Sajet told a crowd that she was asked what she spent most of her time on, to which she answered, “identity politics.”
“America has never been able to separate a person’s appearance from their potential,” she said. “Our history is filled, and continues to be, with examples of hatred, discrimination, fear, and alienation.”
She then talked about a moment on Dec. 7, 1972, when she “suddenly felt” the world was going to come together and do away with “petty differences” while thinking holistically about what it meant to be a human.
That was the day astronaut Jack Schmidt of Apollo 17 snapped a picture of the earth and coined it the “Blue Marble.”
“Well, that utopian vision feels very, very far away today in the terrifying wake of the most uncivil, mistrustful, racially insensitive, sexually exploitative, factually untruthful, digitally manipulated, secretive and inflammatory election of the modern era,” she said.
“The National Portrait Gallery, as I’ve mentioned, is all about identity politics, whether it is to defend the label text that says President Eisenhower was cautious on civil rights or explaining why only 25% of women were historically considered cool or standing firm or not, allowing Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, to be removed from the Smithsonian or even outlining why we show the portrait of Sylvia Rivera, the transgender activist in the galleries,” Sajet later said during the same speech.
Hours after taking the Oath of Office on Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, Trump signed an executive order to eliminate all DEI programs from the federal government.
A day later, the president directed the Office of Personnel Management to notify heads of agencies and departments to close all DEI offices and place those government workers in those offices on paid leave.
Earlier this month, Trump fired Shira Perlmutter, who was in charge of the U.S. Copyright Office, which came just days after terminating the Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden. The termination was part of the administration’s ongoing purge of government officials who are perceived to be opposed to Trump and his agenda.
Both women were notified of their termination by email, The Associated Press previously reported.
Hayden tapped Perlmutter to lead the Copyright Office in October 2020.
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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