A coalition of preservation, science, and history organizations filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the U.S. Department of the Interior, accusing President Donald Trump’s administration of systematically removing or altering historical and scientific information at national parks, including sites in the Bay Area.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, argues the administration is unlawfully reshaping public history through changes to park signage, exhibits and educational materials.
The complaint highlights a change at Muir Woods National Monument as one example. Park staff reportedly removed a 2021 “History Under Construction” exhibit that supplemented an existing conservation timeline with previously omitted stories, including the role of women in the local conservation movement, Indigenous history and the National Park Service’s past ties to eugenics.
The installation used annotated “sticky notes” to contextualize earlier narratives and was taken down as part of a broader review ordered by the Department of the Interior.
Plaintiffs, including the National Parks Conservation Association, the Association of National Park Rangers, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, say the removals stem from a March 2025 executive order by Trump titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that directed federal sites to eliminate content deemed disparaging to Americans and replace it with what the administration considers more positive narratives.
‘We can handle the truth’
According to the lawsuit, in January of this year, the National Park Service, implementing an order issued in May by the Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, tore down an exhibit in Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park memorializing the legacy of people enslaved by the country’s first president.
Crews also ripped away signage detailing climate threats at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, one of the country’s most environmentally endangered parks; and wiped away descriptions of history and science at countless national parks throughout the United States.
“We the people deserve and demand a national park system that tells true stories of Black communities, Indigenous tribes, and countless other fascinating chapters of our history. …”
Alan Spears, National Parks Conservation Association
“National parks serve as living classrooms for our country, where science and history come to life for visitors,” Alan Spears, senior director for cultural resources with the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement. “We the people deserve and demand a national park system that tells true stories of Black communities, Indigenous tribes, and countless other fascinating chapters of our history. As Americans, we deserve national parks that tell stories of our country’s triumphs and heartbreaks alike. We can handle the truth.”
Any materials describing the existence of slavery, the mistreatment of Indigenous groups and the role of women in history has been flagged or removed. Any materials explaining the impacts of climate change on park ecosystems, the impact of human development on the landscape or the impacts of sea level rise has been flagged or removed.
The groups are asking the court to halt enforcement of the directives and order the restoration of removed materials, arguing the changes violate federal law and undermine the parks’ mission to present accurate, inclusive history and science for public education.