Lawsuit challenges Trump-era changes to exhibits at national parks

Lawsuits filed Tuesday target National Park Service decisions plaintiffs say narrowed what visitors can learn

Conservation and historical groups filed suit Tuesday against the Trump administration over National Park Service policies they say have removed or censored factually accurate history and science from national parks. The complaint, filed in Boston, says orders by President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum pressured park staff to take down or limit interpretive exhibits covering subjects including slavery and climate change.

The dispute builds on litigation already underway over slavery-related exhibits. A federal judge on Monday ordered that an exhibit about nine people enslaved by George Washington be restored at his former home in Philadelphia, and the plaintiffs in the new Boston case described a broader federal review effort that they say has expanded beyond that fight.

A second lawsuit filed Tuesday addressed LGBTQ+ representation at Stonewall National Monument, the New York site that commemorates a foundational moment in the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. The plaintiffs asked the court to challenge the removal of a rainbow Pride flag from the monument.

Both suits trace their concerns to Trump executive actions aimed at museums, parks and other federal sites. The groups said the changes came after Trump signed an order “restoring truth and sanity to American history,” directing the Interior Department to ensure that sites do not display elements that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” Burgum later directed removals of “improper partisan ideology” from museums, monuments and other public exhibits under federal control.

In the Boston lawsuit, plaintiffs said a federal campaign to review interpretive materials has accelerated in recent weeks. They said the removals have included exhibit and signage content dealing with slavery and enslaved people, civil rights, treatment of Indigenous peoples, climate science, and other “core elements of the American experience.”

The complaint named a coalition of groups including the National Parks Conservation Association, the American Association for State and Local History, the Association of National Park Rangers and the Union of Concerned Scientists. It said park staff removed explanatory panels last month from Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia—where George and Martha Washington lived with nine enslaved people in the 1790s when the city was briefly the nation’s capital—after the federal directive took hold.

The judge’s order on Monday required restoration of the Philadelphia exhibits in their original condition and prohibited Trump officials from installing replacements that explain the history differently. The order came as President’s Day approached, and it is part of a case in which the administration has challenged what changes it can make to interpretive materials while other litigation continues.

Beyond Philadelphia, the groups’ lawsuit cited other examples they said were flagged for removal. They said about 80 items were identified for removal at the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail in Alabama, including materials tied to key moments of the civil rights movement; they also said the permanent exhibit at Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park in Kansas was flagged because it mentions “equity.” The complaint further alleged that signage at Grand Canyon National Park disappeared after it described how settlers pushed Native American tribes “off their land” for the park’s establishment and “exploited” the landscape for mining and grazing, and that Glacier National Park in Montana was ordered to remove materials describing how climate change affects the park and contributes to the disappearance of glaciers.

“This censorsing science and erasing America’s history at national parks are direct threats to everything these amazing places, and our country, stand for,” said Alan Spears, senior director of cultural resources at the parks conservation association. Spears said national parks serve as “living classrooms” where “science and history come to life for visitors,” adding that “As Americans, we deserve national parks that tell stories of our country’s triumphs and heartbreaks alike. We can handle the truth.”

The Interior Department said Tuesday it had appealed the court’s ruling in the Philadelphia case. An Interior spokesperson said in an email that updated interpretive materials “providing a fuller account of the history of slavery at Independence Hall would have been installed in the coming days″ in the absence of a court order.

The White House also criticized the new Boston lawsuit. White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said Tuesday it was premature and “based on inaccurate and mischaracterized information,” and she said the Department of the Interior is conducting an ongoing review under the president’s executive order but that “actions are not yet finalized.”

In the Stonewall case, plaintiffs argued the removal of the Pride flag was the latest example of efforts they said target LGBTQ+ people. The rainbow banner was installed in 2022 and became the first such banner to fly permanently on federal land, according to the plaintiffs. After the banner vanished this month, the park service said it relied on a Jan. 21 memo limiting the agency primarily to displaying Interior and POW/MIA flags, while providing exemptions including the ability to include “historical context.”

The lawsuit contended that the rainbow flag itself provided historical context and argued that the park service continued to make exceptions for other banners, including Confederate ones, that explain certain sites’ history. New York politicians and activists raised their own Pride flag at the Stonewall monument on Thursday.

Jeff Mow, a retired superintendent at Glacier National Park, said the agency “has always taken great pride in its scholarly research, its focus on telling the truth and being very straightforward about that.” He called Trump’s order a ”disservice” to the public and said it “makes it very hard for those that are trying to do their jobs and being storytellers and speaking the truth.”

“You cannot tell the story of America without recognizing both the beauty and the tragedy of our history,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a nonprofit legal organization that filed the lawsuit on behalf of the advocacy groups.