President Donald Trump’s administration has been ordered to restore signs and exhibits at national parks covering topics such as slavery, climate change and Indigenous history, with a federal judge ruling that their removal set “a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization.”
In a preliminary injunction issued on Friday, U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley directed the Interior Department and National Park Service to reinstate historical and scientific materials removed under the executive order—titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History—that Trump signed in March 2025.
The order led to multiple plaques, signs and interpretive panels at national parks being removed. The president said the materials were part of a “revisionist movement” that portrayed the United States as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”
A coalition of conservation, history and park advocacy groups, including the National Parks Conservation Association and the Association of National Park Rangers, argued in their lawsuit that the administration was erasing accurate historical and scientific information from public lands and replacing it with a selective version of the nation’s past. Kelley agreed that the groups were likely to succeed in showing the policy constituted viewpoint-based censorship.
Newsweek has contacted the Department of the Interior for comment via email outside normal working hours.
Judge Says Trump Trying To ‘Rewrite History’
In her decision, Kelley wrote that the administration’s “efforts, ostensibly taken in the name of restoring dignity, instead seek to rewrite the Nation’s history with a white-out pen.”
“History cannot be faithfully told while excluding the experiences of communities whose contributions, struggles, and achievements form an important part of our Nation’s story,” she continued.
Kelley, who was appointed during the Biden administration, ordered the government to restore the material by July 4, in time for the country’s 250th anniversary.
“Because Defendants deemed it important to strip the parks of these undeniable truths in anticipation of the 250th Anniversary of our great Nation,” the judge wrote, “it is equally important that our shared history be honestly told and fully restored by the 250th Anniversary to properly honor the remarkable achievements of the United States.”
The U.S. Department of the Interior criticized the ruling as coming from a “liberal activist judge.”
“The Department will look at our appeal options while we celebrate UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House this weekend in honor of our nation’s 250th with the greatest president in the history of our country—President Donald J. Trump,” a spokesperson said in a statement to The New York Times.
What National Park Signs Were Affected?
Monuments, sites, and national parks affected by the executive order include the following:
Quotes at Bunker Hill Monument, Massachusetts
Park officials planned to remove panels featuring historic quotes linking the Revolutionary War site to later struggles over slavery, immigration, women’s suffrage and anti-war activism.
Slavery exhibit at the President’s House, Pennsylvania
Exhibits explaining how enslaved people lived and worked at George Washington’s Philadelphia residence were taken down during the review of park displays.
Sign at Francis G. Newlands Memorial Fountain, Washington, D.C.
The National Park Service removed a sign detailing the racist views and policies of former Senator Francis G. Newlands of Nevada. Installed in 2022, the panel explained his support for white supremacist causes, including efforts to restrict immigration and deny voting rights to Black Americans.
Climate change displays at National Parks
Information boards discussing climate change and its impact on public lands were removed or altered at several National Park Service sites as part of the administration’s review.
Leave a Reply