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A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore exhibits, signs, and educational materials related to slavery, climate change, and Indigenous history that the National Park Service had removed from parks and monuments across the country, according to Reuters, as reported by NBC News.
Judge Angel Kelley, of the United States District Court in Boston, issued a preliminary injunction at the request of a coalition of six conservationist, historical, and scientific organizations, which argued that the Department of the Interior had undertaken a "sustained campaign to erase history and undermine science."
Kelley pointed out that the removal of those materials not only undermines "the integrity of the National Parks," but also "sets a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization."
The judge set a deliberate deadline of 21 days so that the restoration coincides with the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States, which is celebrated on July 4, 2026, in order to "properly honor the remarkable achievements of the United States."
The order also pauses new removals or revisions of materials in national parks and demands that the government provide weekly status updates to the court.
The origin of the conflict is the Executive Order 14253, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” signed by President Trump on March 27, 2025.
That order instructed the Department of the Interior to identify monuments, memorials, and properties that have been altered since January 1, 2020, and to revert changes that, according to the White House, reflected a "revisionist movement" portraying the United States as "inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or irreparably flawed."
In implementation of that directive, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued Secretarial Order 3431 on May 20, 2025, instructing the National Park Service to remove content that "inappropriately denigrates Americans" or that, in the case of natural resources, strays from the "beauty, abundance, or grandeur" of the site—language that was practically used to eliminate references to climate change.
The lawsuit was filed on February 17, 2026, in the District Court of Massachusetts by six organizations: the National Park Conservation Association, the American Association of State and Local History, the National Park Service Rangers Association, the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, the Society for Experiential Graphic Design, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Among the sites affected is the Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, where on January 22, 2026, an exhibition documenting the nine enslaved individuals at George Washington's home was dismantled.
At the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston, the National Park Service ordered the removal of three panels featuring quotes on women's suffrage, the rights of African Americans, and a quote from 1846 that referred to the monument as a "bitter mockery" for the enslaved.
Other affected parks include Glacier National Park - where materials on glacier retreat were withdrawn -, the Great Smoky Mountains, Cape Hatteras, Acadia, Fort Sumter, Grand Teton, and Muir Woods.
A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior had previously justified the policy by stating that the parks needed to "tell the full and accurate story of American history," a description that Judge Kelley rejected, pointing out that the materials removed were not eliminated for being inaccurate, but because they "do not align with the preferred narrative" of the administration.
This is not the first judicial setback on this front: in February 2026, another federal judge ordered the restoration of the slavery exhibit in Philadelphia following a lawsuit filed by the city against Secretary Burgum.
Judge Kelley's order turns the dispute into a substantive debate about which narrative should be told during the nation's semiquincentennial, with Boston and Philadelphia—two cities facing the most controversial removals—at the forefront of the July 4th commemorations.
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