A Third Circuit panel on Thursday let Trump National Park Service removals stand by vacating a February injunction that had ordered the National Park Service to restore the slavery exhibit at the President’s House in Philadelphia. The ruling clears the way for the administration to replace the removed panels while the dispute over what visitors see at Independence National Historical Park continues.
President’s House panels
Judge Thomas M. Hardiman wrote for the three-judge panel that the proposed replacement panels "are full of historical context." He also wrote that they "acknowledge the evil of slavery, including its injustices and hypocrisies, and, by telling the story of the nine slaves that Washington kept in the President’s House, remind us of their essential humanity."
The removal at issue happened in January, when President Donald Trump’s administration took down the slavery exhibit from George Washington’s Philadelphia Executive Mansion. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe then issued the February injunction that ordered the panels restored.
Cynthia M. Rufe injunction
The court said Philadelphia had standing to argue that the federal government violated the contract tied to the city’s donation of the President’s House to the National Park Service, which included a promise that the federal agency would maintain the site. But the panel said that duty to maintain is a general management obligation that comes with ownership, not a guarantee that the exhibits would stay in place no matter what the owner wanted.
The judges also rejected Philadelphia’s claim under the Administrative Procedure Act. Hardiman wrote that the law reaches only final agency actions, and the court said the city’s challenge to the removal did not meet that test.
Independence National Historical Park
The panel said Philadelphia could not persuade the court that it shares joint decision-making power with the federal government over the whole of Independence National Historical Park. That left the city with a narrower argument over the President’s House itself, while the federal government kept control over what replacement material can appear there.
The National Park Service had already restored most exhibits after Rufe’s injunction, though some metal interpretive panels still needed fixes before they could be put back. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Interior responded to the ruling with: "Trust in Trump."
The dispute remains tied to a larger fight over whether the federal government gets to choose which version of U.S. history is shown for public viewing, a question that sits closer to the country’s 250th birthday on July Fourth.
