by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 9:20 AM ET, Sat June 13, 2026
A federal judge has ordered a temporary injunction this week to reinstall exhibits and signs on subjects like slavery and climate change from the nation’s national parks and monuments that the Trump Administration had taken down due to their topics, with the judge saying that their removal “sets a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization.”
U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley in Boston was the one to issue the preliminary injunction on June 12 against the March 2025 executive order that Trump said would end a “revisionist movement,” in the country. Trump has repeatedly claimed that anything about climate change or the less savory parts of American history were either factually wrong or un-American.
Rather, many of these exhibits, plaques and informational signs provided important information on our nation’s history and environment, including the more challenging aspects of our nation’s past, such as the treatment of minorities—information that will be returned to the parks and monuments they were taken from ahead of July 4, 2026, our nation's 250th anniversary.
The move this week was made due to the suit of the National Parks Conservation Association, the American Association for State and Local History, the Association of National Park Rangers, the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, the Society for Experiential Graphic Designers and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
These associations and groups argued that the U.S. Department of the Interior, which is in charge of managing national parks and monuments, has been organizing “a sustained campaign to erase history and undermine science."
The lawsuit describes several plaques and exhibits that had been removed, including the following:
- Educational signage at Acadia National Park describing the importance of Cadillac Mountain to the Wabanaki people.
- A sign at Fort Pulaski National Park in Georgia showing a highly reproduced image of an enslaved man’s scars received from severe whippings during his enslavement.
- Interpretive displays at Fort Sumter in North Carolina, created through research by the NPS and West Carolina University warning that climate change could lead to the historic island being underwater by the end of the century.
Judge Kelley ordered the government to restore the signs within 21 days, by July 4, 2026.
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