A federal judge in Massachusetts has ruled that the Trump administration must reinstall exhibits removed from National Parks over the past year, dealing a significant legal setback to the president’s effort to purge diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) content and climate change information from federal cultural sites.
Judge Angel Kelley of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts sided with a coalition of park advocacy groups that sued the Interior Department and National Park Service in February. The groups argued the administration’s actions amounted to an attempt to “erase history and undermine science” at national parks nationwide.
In a 63-page order issued Friday, Kelley found that the government’s removal of interpretive displays “sets a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization” and undermines the “integrity” of the National Park system. She wrote that the government’s stewardship of park sites “carries a responsibility to present history in full rather than in favored fragments,” adding that the administration sought “to tell half-truths” by removing signs and exhibits that did not align with its preferred narrative.
The ruling directly challenges President Trump’s March 2024 executive order directing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to eliminate any content that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living” from public monuments, memorials, and statues. The lawsuit claimed that under this directive, officials identified and removed hundreds of signs, including exhibits on slavery at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park and climate threat warnings at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the site where the Civil War began.
Kelley’s order cited dozens of other examples where information about the environment, abolition, immigration, labor, women’s suffrage, and civil rights was stripped from park displays. She ordered the department to “take all necessary steps forthwith to restore and reinstall all interpretive materials” within 21 days, ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations.
“Because Defendants deemed it important to strip the parks of these undeniable truths in anticipation of the 250th Anniversary of our great Nation, 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,” Kelley wrote.
An Interior Department spokesperson responded by calling Kelley a “liberal activist judge” and said the department is weighing appeal options. The spokesperson’s statement also highlighted the administration’s plans to 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.” The White House UFC event has already drawn scrutiny over its cost, which exceeds $60 million, and raised ethics concerns.
Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, the group representing the plaintiffs, praised the ruling. “We are grateful that once again, judicial intervention has halted the unlawful overreach of the reckless Trump-Vance administration,” Perryman said. “And we are grateful the court not only stopped further censorship, but recognized the need to restore the exhibits the administration already illegally removed.”
The case is part of a broader legal pushback against the administration’s efforts to control cultural narratives. In a related matter, a judge recently denied a bid by the Kennedy Center to delay the removal of Trump’s name from its building amid an appeal. Separately, a federal judge ruled she could not reinstate a Yosemite ranger fired over a trans flag display, and another judge dismissed a bid to halt the White House UFC event, citing lack of standing.
