A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to restore locations changed under an executive order requiring the nation’s museums, parks and landmarks not to display elements that are “inappropriately disrespectful to past or living Americans.”
A preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Angel Kelly in Massachusetts also halts further changes, writing that the plaintiffs showed that these efforts were intended to “rewrite the nation’s history with a blank pen.”
“History cannot be told faithfully while ignoring the experiences of communities whose contributions, struggles, and accomplishments form an important part of this nation’s story,” the judge wrote.
The Trump administration must also submit weekly status reports describing the progress of these changes, the judge wrote.
“In the name of promoting American dignity, this administration seeks to share a limited history by ordering the removal of all signs, exhibits, and interpretive exhibits in national parks that do not align with its preferred narrative, thereby attempting to tell half-truths,” Kelly wrote.
The order is in response to a lawsuit filed in February by conservation and historical groups over National Park Service policies, which they say forced park officials to remove or censor dozens of exhibits that share factually accurate and relevant U.S. history and scientific knowledge, including about slavery and climate change.
Blank walls and empty brackets indicate where national park signs had been placed to mark historical facts about slavery that were removed by the Trump administration, at Independence National Historical Park in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 14, 2026.
Andrew Lichtenstein Corbis News | Getty Images
Many of the changes occurred at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, where the government removed exhibits about the lives of nine people enslaved there in the 1790s during the era of the first U.S. president, George Washington. Other changes include removing a sign explaining basalt bubbles at Sunset Crater Volcanic National Monument in Arizona after it showed an image of a visitor holding a Pride flag, while a film about labor history was removed from Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order last year to “restore truth and sanity to American history” at the nation’s museums, parks and landmarks. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum later directed that “inappropriate partisan ideology” be removed from museums, monuments, landmarks and other public exhibits under federal control.
An email seeking comment was sent to the Home Office on Saturday.
Alan Spears, senior director of cultural resources for the National Parks Conservation Association, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit, said the ruling will help protect national parks from government efforts “to erase the history and science of a unique place.”
“National parks belong to the American people, and censorship of any kind goes against the values these places represent,” he said.
Bill Wade, executive director of the National Park Rangers Association, another organization that filed the lawsuit, said this is especially good news for national park officials, who “take pride in providing truthful, accurate and unbiased information.”
