Six organizations dedicated to park conservation, historical preservation, and scientific education launched legal action Tuesday to halt the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate informational materials from national parks and monuments, following the removal of displays addressing subjects including slavery and climate science.
The National Parks Conservation Association, American Association for State and Local History, and four additional organizations filed their federal court challenge in Boston, contending that the U.S. Department of the Interior is conducting a “sustained campaign to erase history and undermine science.”
According to the legal filing, the department is eliminating signage and displays from parks in direct violation of congressional directives that govern operations at more than 430 national park locations, implementing an unlawful policy without providing reasonable justification for the removals.
“Censoring science and erasing America’s history at national parks are direct threats to everything these amazing places, and our country, stand for,” stated Alan Spears, senior director of cultural resources at the National Parks Conservation Association.
The Interior Department has not provided a response to requests for comment.
This legal challenge represents one of two court cases filed Tuesday targeting modifications the department has made to national monuments and parks under its oversight as part of Trump’s broader policy agenda.
Multiple community organizations initiated separate litigation in New York, claiming the department illegally removed Pride flags from the Stonewall National Monument, which stands as the nation’s first national monument honoring the LGBTQ rights movement.
The Boston court filing came one day after a Pennsylvania federal judge mandated that the National Park Service restore a display that had been taken down from the President’s House Site at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, which detailed the history of slavery and President George Washington’s ownership of enslaved individuals.
Tuesday’s legal action indicated that this particular exhibit was among multiple displays removed following Trump’s executive order signed in March 2025, which targeted what he described as a “revisionist movement” that depicted the United States as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”
Trump’s directive instructed the Interior Department to restore parks, monuments, and memorials that had been altered or removed to combat what the White House characterized as a “false revision of history.”
The lawsuit states that after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued subsequent orders implementing Trump’s directive, the National Park Service identified hundreds of signs and materials that it has started removing from parks across the country.
These removals include signage at Maine’s Acadia National Park that explained climate change’s effects on the park and discussed the cultural importance of Cadillac Mountain to the Wabanaki people, who are native to that region.
