Recommendations of the Editorial team
A federal judge in Pennsylvania has ordered the Trump administration to reinstate several exhibits on slavery that were removed from the President’s House site in Philadelphia last month.
In a preliminary injunction issued Monday, Feb. 16, Judge Cynthia M. Rufe ordered the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service to restore the site — which shows part of the foundation of the former mansion where George Washington and John Adams lived during their terms as presidents — to its condition before the displays were removed on Jan. 22.
However, Rufe did not set a firm deadline for restoration.
Background of the removal
The exhibits were targeted under an order issued last year by Trump’s Interior Secretary Doug Burgum that ordered the review and possible removal of displays in national parks that “unduly disparage” the United States. Last July, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that 13 items in six displays at the President’s House had been flagged for review. However, in January everything shown at the location was removed.
Since its dedication in 2010, the President’s House Site has explicitly explored the “paradox between slavery and freedom in the new nation,” as a description on the National Park Service website continues. It also serves as a memorial to the nine people Washington enslaved there during the founding of the United States.
Lawsuit filed by the city of Philadelphia
The city of Philadelphia sued Burgum and acting National Park Service director Jessica Bowron after the displays were removed. In granting the city’s request for a preliminary injunction, Rufe stated that the Interior Department and the NPS “must take all necessary steps to ensure the safety, security and preservation of all items removed from the President’s House.”
It also prohibited the defendants from “making any further changes to the President’s House Site. Including the installation of replacement materials, without the mutual consent of the City of Philadelphia” while the litigation continues.
Reference to George Orwell
Rufe, a George W. Bush appointee, also opened her decision with a quote from George Orwell’s “1984”: “All history was a palimpsest. Scraped clean. And rewritten exactly as many times as necessary. In no case would it have been possible, after the deed was done, to prove that any fabrication had taken place.”
The judge further wrote: “As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s ‘1984’ now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is strength,’ this court is now being asked to decide whether the federal government has the power it claims to have. To distort and dismantle historical truths when it has a certain range of historical facts. It does not.”
Reactions and further course
The Interior Department and the National Park Service did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Although the injunction does not fully close the case, Rufe has signaled that she intends to move quickly, including to resolve the matter before this summer’s 250th anniversary celebrations on Independence Mall (where the President’s House is located).
Even before today’s decision, it seemed unlikely that Rufe would side with the Trump administration. At a hearing last month, she called the administration’s argument that the president has full authority to change exhibits in national parks “frightening” and “dangerous” (according to The Philadelphia Inquirer).
