The racial and gender ideologues who infiltrated and, at times, overtook American university life in the second and third decades of this century are rightly being criticized for distracting our institutions from their core mission of advancing knowledge. As a result, “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) is now in full retreat.

But the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has committed itself to reinterpreting our glorious history by working with something called the Monument Lab to correct what they view as a critical deficiency, namely that “[t]here are no US-born Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, or self-identified LGBTQ+ people” among the top 50 individuals most often honored through our monuments. It has given $15 million to establish “an institute for the advanced study of race and social justice” at Rutgers. It promotes other projects conveying the image that, until recently, America was a racist, sexist, selfish, and mean society, one that today’s enlightened Americans should denigrate and malign.

Monuments honoring noted individuals are constructed, usually long after their death. It took more than half of a century after death, for example, to construct our most important monuments to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The passage of time is necessary to appropriately assess the eternal importance of individuals to our nation’s heritage. That there are no monuments to “US-born Latinx ... [or] Pacific Islander” among our top 50 honored Americans is hardly surprising since migration from Latin America or Pacific islands was essentially non-existent for the first two or even three of the four centuries of our existence.

Monuments should not be constructed to promote the intellectually fashionable cause of the moment but rather to remind us of citizens who have contributed to what being an American means. And that has little or nothing to do with skin color, national origin, or personal sexual predilections, criteria of importance to DEI aficionados.

What is particularly upsetting to me, however, is how the Mellon family name and resources have gone to promote an activity so antithetical to the principles and beliefs of these benefactors.

Andrew W. Mellon was a conservative Republican who was Treasury Secretary under Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover; for most of his years in government service, he favored lowering income taxes and running budget surpluses to lower the national debt. He is the founding contributor to the National Gallery of Art and strongly supported the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.

I suspect Mr. Mellon is turning in his grave over the use of his name to further a cause that he neither promoted nor would have likely supported even today. That is true of so many other important philanthropists; for example, the very conservative John MacArthur would be repulsed at the promotion of leftist causes by the foundation that he created.

In my opinion, one of America’s greatest weaknesses today is its lack of knowledge and respect for its own past. Our history provides the glue binding us together as Americans. Several generations of exceptional individuals are responsible for our nation’s material affluence today, as well as the establishment of an extraordinarily successful system of government based on the rule of law, decentralized control—the federal system—and a tripartite diffusion of federal power. We have honored these people—mostly white men since they made most important decisions in early America—with monuments calling attention to their great contributions.

We today have a Now Generation, too many of whom believe that virtually everything wise and important has occurred under their watch. But much of any wisdom or virtue they have accumulated has resulted from their predecessors’ material, intellectual, entrepreneurial, scientific, spiritual, and other accomplishments. Monuments are a tangible way of honoring our past, and tearing them down of monuments is thus despicable. That the organization, National Trust for Historic Preservation, owning James Madison’s home in Montpelier is not filled with exhibits honoring the Father of Our Constitution is deplorable, contrasted to the more appropriate use of George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon, honoring the man called the Father of Our Country.

President Trump has proposed a National Garden of American Heroes to further honor those who have made America great. That strikes me as a potentially rather good idea, but given the distortion of the intent of many other worthy efforts at historic preservation, the devil is in the details.