Lawsuit accuses Trump administration of erasing history and science at national parks : NPR
National Park advocates and educators have sued to stop the Trump administration from taking down park displays about slavery, Native American removal, and other ugly chapters in U.S. history.
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In this country, the Trump administration has been changing what people can learn when they visit national parks. The administration removed displays on the history of slavery, Indigenous people, civil rights, climate change. Conservation groups are suing to protect those displays. Here’s NPR’s Adrian Florido.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: In its lawsuit, Democracy Forward, a legal advocacy group, accused the administration of, quote, “mounting a sustained campaign to erase history and undermine science” as it’s torn down exhibits at national parks across the country.
ED STIERLI: We think that government censorship in our national parks violates the very ideals that this country was built on.
FLORIDO: Ed Stierli is with the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association, one of the plaintiffs in the suit. It asks a judge to block the government from removing any more displays and to restore those already taken down.
STIERLI: Telling the truth is a foundation of our democracy. And the American people, they do not want the history erased or our science cast away in national parks.
FLORIDO: The Park Service began removing the displays to comply with an executive order President Trump signed in March titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. It directed the Secretary of Interior, who oversees the Park Service to ensure displays do not, quote, “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living” and that they instead focus on American greatness. In a statement responding to the lawsuit, the Interior Department said it is working, quote, “to ensure parks tell the full and accurate story of American history.
But earlier this week, a federal judge in a different case disagreed. She ordered the Park Service to reinstall exhibit recently removed from the site in Philadelphia where George Washington lived as president. It told the story of the enslaved workers Washington owned there. Each person who visits the president’s house and does not learn of the realities of founding-era slavery, the judge wrote, receives a false account of this country’s history. Raina Yancey owns The Black Journey, which gives Black history walking tours in Philadelphia.
RAINA YANCEY: Seeing your ancestors’ history, their lives, you know, having them taken down, it sends a message that they didn’t matter. But they matter very much to us, and we can’t wait until the panels are actually back up and take visitors there.
FLORIDO: The government has appealed the decision, ordering it to put the displays back up.
Adrian Florido, NPR News.
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