Judge Orders Trump Administration to Restore Some National Park Exhibits and Halt Further Removals

U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley issued a preliminary injunction on June 12, 2026, ordering the Trump administration to restore signs, displays, and interpretive exhibits removed from National Park Service sites. The order requires reinstatement of materials at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park, Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument in Arizona, and Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts.

It also directs a pause on any further changes and mandates weekly status reports on restoration progress. President Donald Trump signed the executive order titled “restoring truth and sanity to American history” last year. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum later directed removal of “improper partisan ideology” from museums, monuments, landmarks, and other public exhibits under federal control.

A February lawsuit filed by conservation and historical organizations challenged National Park Service policies that removed or censored exhibits. Removed materials included exhibits on the lives of nine people enslaved at Independence National Historical Park in the 1790s under George Washington, a sign at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument describing basalt bubbles that included an image of a visitor holding a Pride flag, and films on labor history at Lowell National Historical Park.

” “Under the guise of promoting American dignity, this Administration seeks to share a limited history by ordering the removal of all signs, displays, and interpretive exhibits at National Parks that do not align with its preferred narrative, thereby telling half-truths,” Kelley wrote.