By Nate Raymond
BOSTON, July 2 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Thursday lifted a judge’s order requiring President Donald Trump’s administration to reinstall dozens of exhibits that it removed from national parks on topics such as slavery and climate change.
A three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put on hold a judge’s order requiring the National Park Service to reinstall exhibits that it removed under the Republican president’s directive targeting displays that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”
Boston-based U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley last month concluded that the displays were removed from the nation’s parks as part of the administration’s unlawful effort to “rewrite the nation’s history with a white-out pen.”
Kelley reached that conclusion in a lawsuit by groups representing park conservationists, historians and scientists who accused the administration of engaging in a concerted censorship campaign aimed at erasing aspects of American history that did not conform with Trump’s ideals.
But a panel of the 1st Circuit composed only of judges appointed by Democratic presidents agreed to put Kelley’s ruling on hold while the administration appeals it. The court said the government was likely to prevail on appeal because the plaintiffs had not demonstrated that the policy would irreparably harm them while the litigation played out.
Brooke Menschel, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at the liberal advocacy group Democracy Forward, called the ruling a disappointing but “temporary procedural setback,” as the court did not decide the question of whether the administration’s actions were lawful.
“Unfortunately, for now, the decision allows the administration to continue removing and altering interpretive materials that are critical for millions of visitors to understand our nation’s history,” Menschel said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, said in a statement it has “encouraged Americans to visit our cultural and historic sites and engage in meaningful conversations about the moments that have shaped our country.”
DOZENS OF REMOVED EXHIBITS
At least 51 exhibits from 37 sites have been removed or discarded from parks nationwide in order to comply with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s implementation of an executive order Trump signed in March 2025.
Trump’s executive order took aim at what he called a “revisionist movement” that portrayed the United States as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive or otherwise irredeemably flawed,” and directed changes be made to parks nationwide.
Among those removed was an exhibit at the President’s House in Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park describing the ownership of enslaved people by George Washington, the first U.S. president.
The lawsuit challenging their removal was filed in February by groups including the National Parks Conservation Association and the American Association for State and Local History.
Kelley, who was appointed by Democratic former President Joe Biden, had said that without a preliminary injunction they would suffer “aesthetic, recreational and informational harms.”
But the appeals court said those groups had put forward only a single member of their organizations who had claimed she would suffer any specific harm without an injunction, based on an absence of park material that could educate her children.
“As the Department points out, however, the plaintiffs do not allege that any material has yet been removed from the parks that the member identifies as the ones that she has specific plans to visit this summer,” the court said.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Will Dunham and Cynthia Osterman)
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