Washington– Preservation and history organizations filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Tuesday over National Park Service policies that the groups say erase history and science from America’s national parks.
A lawsuit filed in Boston says orders from President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum forced Park Service employees to remove or censor exhibits that shared accurate and relevant history and scientific knowledge of the United States, including on slavery and climate change.
The changes to the exhibits came in response to Trump’s executive order to “restore truth and reason to American history” at the country’s museums, parks and landmarks. It asked the Interior Department to ensure that these sites do not display items that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”
Burgum later directed the removal of “inappropriate partisan ideology” from museums, monuments, monuments, and other public exhibits under federal control.
The groups behind the lawsuit said a federal campaign to revise interpretive materials has escalated in recent weeks, resulting in the removal of several exhibits that discuss the history of slavery and enslaved people, civil rights, the treatment of indigenous peoples, climate science, and other “essential elements of the American experience.”
The lawsuit was brought by a coalition that includes 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 comes as a federal judge on Monday ordered the return of an exhibit about nine people enslaved by George Washington at his former home in Philadelphia.
The park service removed the plaques last month from Independence National Historical Park, the site where George and Martha Washington lived with nine of their slaves in the 1790s, when Philadelphia was briefly the nation’s capital.
The judge ordered the exhibits to be returned on Presidents’ Day, the federal holiday that honors Washington’s legacy.
The Ministry of Interior appealed this ruling.
Besides the Philadelphia case, the park service has requested the removal of interpretive materials describing important moments in the civil rights movement, the groups said. For example, on the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail in Alabama, officials have marked about 80 items for removal.
The permanent exhibit in the park, Brown v. Kansas National Historical Education Board, was flagged because it mentioned “fairness,” the lawsuit says. The pride flag has been removed from the Stonewall National Monument in New York City which marked the launch of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Signs that have disappeared from Grand Canyon National Park suggest that settlers pushed Native American tribes “off their lands” to create the park and “exploit” the landscape for mining and grazing.
“Censoring science and erasing America’s history in national parks represent direct threats to everything these wonderful places and our country stand for,” said Alan Spears, senior director of cultural resources at the Parks Conservation Association.
“National parks are living classrooms for our country, where science and history come alive for visitors,” Spears added. “As Americans, we deserve national parks that tell the stories of our country’s triumphs and sorrows alike. We can handle the truth.”
The Interior Department said on Tuesday that it had appealed the court’s ruling in the Philadelphia case.
“The National Park Service routinely updates exhibits across the park system to ensure historical accuracy and completeness. Were it not for this unnecessary judicial intervention, updated interpretive materials that provide a fuller description of the history of slavery would have been installed at Independence Hall in the coming days,” an Interior spokesperson said in an email.
US District Judge Cynthia Roof ruled on Monday that all items in the Philadelphia exhibit must be returned to their original condition while a lawsuit challenging the legality of the removal is heard. It has prevented Trump officials from installing alternatives that explain history differently.
Rove, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, began her written order with a quote from George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” and compared the Trump administration to a totalitarian regime in the book called The Ministry of Truth, which revised historical records to fit his own account.
“You can’t tell America’s story without acknowledging the beauty and tragedy of our history,” said Sky Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, a nonprofit legal organization that filed the lawsuit on behalf of advocacy groups.
“Trump’s efforts to erase history and science in our national parks violate federal law and are a disgrace that respects neither our country’s legacy nor its future,” she said.
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