A federal judge in Massachusetts has ordered the Trump administration to restore signs and exhibits at national park sites that were removed under an executive order to eliminate negative portrayals of American history.
District Judge Angel Kelley ordered the Interior Department to reinstall interpretive materials within three weeks, accusing the administration of attempting to “rewrite the Nation’s history with a white-out pen.”
In an executive order last year titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” President Trump directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to ensure monuments, memorials, statues and markers “do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”
Conservation and historical groups sued as the Interior Department targeted hundreds of exhibits on climate change, civil rights and diverse communities.
Some of the interpretive materials officials removed in the Mountain West, include:
- interpretive materials related to carbon dioxide emissions and climate change from Glacier National Park
- a sign at Grand Teton National Park explaining how Gustavus Cheyney Doane, a key member of an early Yellowstone expedition, had participated in a massacre of Native Americans
- displays at the Grand Canyon sharing how the federal government claimed tribal land to create the park
- a sign at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument in Arizona that included an image of a visitor holding a Pride flag
Information at six other parks sites in the Mountain West was flagged for removal, including a sign at Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site in Colorado about a family’s ownership of enslaved people.
In a statement, the Interior Department said the order came from a Biden-appointed judge and that it’s looking at options for appeal.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio and KJZZ in Arizona as well as NPR, with support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
