Who Is Mike Lee? Utah Senator Declines Women's & Latino Smithsonian Museums

The Smithsonian has over 19 different museums and two that were supposed to be dedicated to American women and Latinos were turned down by one senator on Thursday.

Mike Lee, a Utah senator, was the only one who blocked the congressional vote for the museums, stating he felt they would make the nation further divided than it already is.

“My objection to the creation of a new Smithsonian museum or series of museums based on group identity, what Theodore Roosevelt called hyphenated Americanism, is not a matter of budgetary or legislative technicalities. It is a matter of national unity and cultural inclusion,” he said in his speech Thursday night.

The two museum bill authors wanted a unanimous vote between the 100 senators.

A Latino history museum has been talked about for the last 20 years and a museum dedicated to U.S. women’s history has been in the works since the early 2000s.

Lee’s argument was the fact that these two museums wouldn’t be celebrating diversity, but “weaponizing” it, BBC reported

He also went on to explain that the reason Native Americans and African Americans have their own Smithsonian museums is that their histories have been diminished, whilst women and Latinas haven’t been.

When the news of this decline was released, Lee received backlash from both parties who were unhappy with his decision.

There are others that believe in what Lee says, and sees where he’s coming from, however.

Creating museums isn’t the easiest thing to do and even though there wasn’t a unanimous vote in the senate, the idea can be reintroduced to Congress in January.

The Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III stated that they need the right funding to create these new museums, which Congress could allocate.

Should the measures ever pass, it would still take years before any type of construction would begin.