Biden Judge Orders Trump to Restore Partisan Content Removed from National Parks

Clear Facts

• A Biden-appointed federal judge issued a preliminary injunction requiring the Trump administration to restore exhibits at national parks that were removed under an executive order targeting displays deemed disparaging to America.
• The Interior Department called the judge a “liberal activist” and stated it is reviewing options to appeal the ruling.
• President Trump’s executive order sought to restore American heritage to parks and monuments that were “changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history” after the 2020 race riots.

A federal judge appointed by former President Joe Biden has ordered the Trump administration to restore exhibits and materials at national parks that had been removed under a directive targeting displays deemed disparaging to America. U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley in Massachusetts, who was appointed to the federal bench in 2021, issued a preliminary injunction Friday requiring the administration to reverse the changes and pause any further removals amid legal challenges.

The Interior Department responded swiftly, calling Kelley a “liberal activist judge” in a statement. The department said it was reviewing its options to appeal the removal of what Secretary Doug Burgum rebuked as “improper partisan ideology.”

The ruling comes as America prepares for the crescendo of America 250 celebrations on July 4. President Trump’s March 27, 2025 executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” sought to restore American heritage to national parks and monuments that were “changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history” after the race riots of 2020.

Trump ordered Interior to “take action, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law,” to ensure that all U.S. government descriptions and depictions do not “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living” and instead put “focus on the greatness” of America.

While Judge Kelley wrote that the plaintiffs had shown the administration’s actions were meant “to rewrite the Nation’s history with a white-out pen,” Trump issued the order because of what he identified as the “false reconstruction” of U.S. history under the Biden administration.

According to Kelley, removing the disparagement of Americans and highlighting U.S. greatness set a “dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization.” The judge also ordered the administration to file weekly status reports detailing its progress in restoring the affected materials.

Among the materials Secretary Burgum’s Interior Department removed were an exhibit at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park describing the ownership of enslaved people by George Washington, the nation’s first president, and signage detailing climate threats at Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

“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.

Trump signed the executive order to work toward “restoring truth and sanity to American history” at the nation’s museums, parks and landmarks. Burgum later directed the removal of what he called “improper partisan ideology” from museums, monuments, landmarks and other public exhibits under federal control.

Other changes denounced by critics included the removal of a sign at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument in Arizona that included an image of a visitor holding a Pride flag, as well as the removal of films about labor history at Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts.

“What we were left, like virtually every Cabinet agency, was a complete mess from the Biden administration,” Burgum told Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany on “Saturday in America,” vowing that he is “cleaning up the mess that’s been left with us.”

“They were doing everything from climate extremism to DEI, ESG, you name it, and they were doing it all opposed to what the American people voted for and what President Trump promised the American people we would do.”

Let us know what you think, please share your thoughts in the comments below.