Trump hit with stinging order for twisting national park exhibits into 'half-truths'

https://www.rawstory.com/judge-national-parks/

Trump hit with stinging order for twisting national park exhibits into 'half-truths'

Matthew Chapman
June 12, 2026 8:20PM ET

A federal judge in Massachusetts scorched President Donald Trump's Interior Department on Friday for orders to remove all exhibits pertaining to race, sexuality, and climate from national parks — and issued an order to reverse all of it.

U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, went into painstaking detail about the significance of the exhibits being torn down under the so-called "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" order by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

"The National Park system ... serves as a cornerstone of public learning, providing rich and informative signs, exhibits, and interpretive waysides on topics ranging from civil rights to environmentalism," wrote Kelley, citing "the echoes of abolition in John Brown’s Fort in Harpers Ferry ... the genesis of the modern LGBTQ+ civil rights movement at the Stonewall National Monument ... [and] the retreating ice of Glacier National Park."

The park system, she continued, is sometimes called “America’s largest classroom,” and to that end, "the Government’s stewardship of these park sites ... carries a responsibility to present history in full rather than in favored fragments." Unfortunately, she continued, "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."

… removal causes irreparable harm … more …