A US district court judge has ordered the Trump administration to reinstate any history or science materials it removed from the nation’s public monuments, finding that the White House’s actions “set a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization”.

In March 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “restoring truth and sanity to American history”, calling upon the secretary of interior to examine monuments, memorials and statues to see if they had been altered after January 2020 to represent a “false construction of American history”.

“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 in her decision.

Alan Spears, senior director for cultural resources at the NPCA, said in a statement after the ruling: “Americans count on national parks to help us understand our full, rich history. Stories of triumph and tragedy alike deserve to be told out loud at parks.”

Emily Thompson, executive director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, a fellow plaintiff in the suit, echoed the sentiment. National parks “exist to preserve and interpret the full American story, not just the parts that make some politicians comfortable. This ruling will help ensure that remains the case,” she said in a statement.

The Trump administration has 21 days to comply with the order.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/12/judge-national-park-trump-displays