White-out pen

Judge halts Trump administration's rewriting of history with a 'white-out pen'

By Tessa McLean

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Friday that halts the Trump administration’s effort to erase some historical and scientific facts on signs in national parks.

The court order requires the government to restore the materials that have been removed or changed since May 20, 2025, within three weeks, and stop all further such changes. The administration will also be required to provide regular progress reports to the court.

The Trump administration issued the “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” executive order in March 2025, urging park visitors to report signs that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living,” with plans to erase evidence of the history of slavery, civil rights, Indigenous peoples and climate change. It led to a nationwide grassroots effort to document removals, as well as any informational signs at risk of removal. Signs that have been removed include those connecting American explorers and massacres of Native Americans at both Grand Teton National Park and Glacier National Park; a rainbow flag was taken down at Stonewall National Monument. 

“Plaintiff has demonstrated a likelihood that Defendants’ efforts, ostensibly taken in the name of restoring dignity, instead seek to rewrite the Nation’s history with a white-out pen,” the court order read.

The case was brought in March 2026 by a coalition of groups that includes the National Parks Conservation Association, American Association for State and Local History, Association of National Park Rangers and the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.

“This ruling is from a liberal activist judge. The Department will look at our appeal options while we celebrate UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House this weekend in honor of our nation’s 250th with the greatest president in the history of our country - President Donald Trump,” an Interior Department spokesperson said in a statement emailed to SFGATE Saturday.

Organizations involved in the case previously told SFGATE they were worried not only about the removal of information, but also how it could snowball into further restrictions, possibly even closing monuments altogether that are inextricably linked with history. “This is the fierce urgency of now. Things seem to be kicking into high gear for the administration and the National Park Service, acting under duress to implement these policies,” Alan Spears, the senior director for cultural resources at the National Parks Conservation Association, told SFGATE in March. “The first thing we need to do is stop the freefall, stop the removal — and then work on building back better.”

Judge Angel Kelley of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, a Biden appointee, issued the 63-page ruling, writing, “History cannot be faithfully told while excluding the experiences of communities whose contributions, struggles, and achievements form an important part of our Nation’s story.”