Trump officials sued over effort to ‘erase history and science’ in national parks | Trump administration
Preservation and historical organizations sued the Trump administration Tuesday over National Park Service policies that groups say erase history and science from America’s national parks.
A lawsuit filed in Boston says orders from Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum force park service staff to remove or censor exhibits that share factually accurate and relevant U.S. history and scientific information, including slavery and climate change.
Separately, LGBTQ+ rights advocates and historic preservationists sued the park service Tuesday over the removal of the rainbow Pride flag at New York’s Stonewall national monument, which commemorates a foundational moment in the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.
The changes to the exhibits come in response to Trump’s order to “restore truth and sanity to American history” at the nation’s museums, parks and landmarks. He directed the Department of the Interior to ensure that these sites do not display elements that “inappropriately disparage the history or life of Americans.” Burgum then ordered the removal of “inappropriate partisan ideology” from museums, monuments, landmarks, and other public exhibits under federal control.
Groups behind the lawsuit said the federal campaign to review interpretive materials has escalated in recent weeks, leading to the removal of numerous exhibits discussing the history of slavery and enslaved people, civil rights, the treatment of Native peoples, climate science and other “essential elements of the American experience.”
The lawsuit was filed by a coalition of the National Parks Conservation Association, the American Association for State and Local History, the National Park Rangers Association, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. It came Monday when a federal judge ordered an exhibit about nine people enslaved by George Washington to be restored at his former home in Philadelphia.
The park service last month removed interpretative panels at Independence national historical park, where George and Martha Washington lived with their nine slaves in the 1790s, when Philadelphia briefly became the nation’s capital. The judge ordered the exhibits to be restored on President’s Day, a celebration commemorating Washington’s legacy.
In addition to the Philadelphia case, the groups said the park service also flagged that explanatory materials depicting key moments in the civil rights movement should be removed. For example, on the national historic trail from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama, officials flagged nearly 80 items for removal.
The permanent exhibit at the Brown v Board of Education national historical park in Kansas was flagged for mentioning “equality,” the lawsuit states. A lost sign in the Grand Canyon national park states that settlers “dispossessed” Native American tribes to establish the park and “exploited” the land for mining and grazing. Officials at Glacier national park in Montana ordered the removal of materials describing the impact of climate change on the park and its role in the disappearance of glaciers, according to the lawsuit.
“Censoring science and erasing America’s history in national parks is a direct threat to everything these magnificent places and our country represent,” said Alan Spears, senior director of cultural resources for the parks conservation association.
“National parks serve as living classrooms for our country, where science and history come alive for visitors,” Spears said. “As Americans, we deserve national parks that tell the stories of our country’s triumphs and sufferings. We can deal with the facts.”
The interior ministry said Tuesday it was appealing the court’s decision in the Philadelphia case. “Updated interpretive materials providing a more comprehensive account of the history of slavery at Independence Hall will be placed in the coming days in the absence of a court order,” an internal affairs spokesperson said in an email.
White House press secretary Taylor Rogers said Tuesday that the new lawsuit was premature and “based on inaccurate and mischaracterized information.”
He said “the Department of the Interior is conducting an ongoing review of our nation’s American history exhibits pursuant to the president’s executive order” but that the actions have not yet been finalized.
U.S. district judge Cynthia Rufe ruled Monday that all materials from the Philadelphia exhibit must be restored to their original state; Meanwhile, a lawsuit challenging the legality of the removal is ongoing. It prohibited Trump officials from making changes that explain the date differently.
Rufe, a George W. Bush appointee, began his written turn with a quote from George Orwell’s novel 1984 and likened the Trump administration to the Ministry of Truth, revising historical records to align with its narrative.
The lawsuit over the Stonewall flag calls its removal “the latest example of the Trump administration’s long history of efforts to target the LGBTQ+ community for discrimination and disparagement.”
The pride flag was installed in 2022, becoming the first such banner to fly permanently on federal lands. After the banner disappeared this month, the park service cited a Jan. 21 memo that largely limited the agency to displaying Interior and POW/MIA flags; but exemptions include providing “historical context.”
The lawsuit argues that the rainbow flag provides such context and says the park service continues to make exceptions for other banners that help explain the history of certain sites, including Confederate banners. New York politicians and activists raised their own Pride flags at the Stonewall monument on Thursday.
The Interior Department on Tuesday repeated past criticism of New York and Democratic officials who are not party to the case.
Jeff Mow, who is retiring as superintendent at Glacier in 2022, said the park service “has always been very proud of its scientific research, its focus on telling the truth and being very forthright about it.” He called Trump’s order a “disservice” to the public, saying “it makes it very difficult for those who are trying to do their jobs, who are storytellers and who tell the truth.”
“You can’t tell the story of America without recognizing both the beauty and tragedy of our history,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a nonprofit legal organization that files lawsuits on behalf of advocacy groups.
