Court ruling clears way to replace slavery exhibit in Philadelphia at President’s House Site, handing Trump a win

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A federal appeals court has paved the way for the Trump administration to replace the slavery exhibit it removed at the President’s House Site on Philadelphia’s Independence Mall.

Thursday’s decision effectively discards a February injunction ordering the National Park Service to restore the site, which included a series of illustrated panels about the nine people enslaved by George Washington at the executive mansion while he was president in the 1790s.

The panels were taken down, then partially restored, as part of a monthslong legal fight rooted in an executive order issued by President Donald Trump. Citing a 2006 agreement, the city sued the Park Service and the Interior Department in January after it abruptly removed the exhibit to comply with the order.

In its unanimous ruling, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals found that the city does not have any “statutory, property, or contractual rights that empower it to curate the exhibits in the President’s House.” The judges also concluded that the Trump administration’s replacement panels, which NPS has posted online, are “full of historical context.”

“They highlight the momentous events that took place in the President’s House and the other sites at Independence National Historical Park. They acknowledge the evil of slavery, including its injustices and hypocrisies, and, by telling the story of the nine slaves that Washington kept in the President’s House, remind us of their essential humanity,” wrote Judge Thomas Hardiman, who authored the appellate court’s opinion.

Critics have argued that the new panels would change the overall tone of the site, softening and significantly reducing references to slavery. The Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, which led the movement to develop the original site to focus on Washington’s slaves, has said the exhibits are a form of “whitewashing.”

“What we are seeing now is not restoration—it is revision,” the statement read. “It is an attempt to sanitize history and present a version of the past that is more comfortable, but far less truthful,” the coalition said in an April statement.

A spokesperson for the city’s Law Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

How the fight over the exhibit began

Last March, Trump issued a sweeping executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” a directive aimed at reshaping how American history is presented at federal sites. It called for the removal of what it described as “negative” or “disparaging” portrayals of the nation’s founders.

In January, the Park Service removed the entire slavery exhibit at the President’s House, alarming advocates and prompting the city to file a federal lawsuit seeking to restore the panels. Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration called the decision to remove the exhibit “arbitrary and capricious,” violating federal law.

The following month, on Presidents Day, U.S. District Court Judge Cynthia Rufe sided with the city, granting a preliminary injunction that ordered the Park Service to restore the site to its original “physical status” while a lawsuit challenging the removal played out.

In her ruling, Rufe sharply criticized what she called the government’s unilateral decision to remove the exhibit, calling it an attempt to suppress historical information. The judge used a literary reference to drive home her opinion of the government’s rationale, likening the government to the fictional Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s novel “1984.”

Many of the panels were restored the same week, but not all of them.

Less than a week ago, a district judge in Massachusetts ordered the Trump administration to restore the missing plaques. The decision temporarily blocked the Park Service from removing or altering content at federal sites across the country.

It’s now unclear whether the city has any legal options left to stop the administration from installing new panels.

Critics say new panels rewrite history

The new plaques include references to slavery, the Underground Railroad and figures such as Frederick Douglass. Like the previous panels, they also make mention of the nine enslaved people held by Washington while he was president and living in Philadelphia.

But opponents say the panels are an attempt to place Washington in a better light.

For example, text on one notes that the U.S. Constitution did not contain the word “slavery,” and another argues that Washington had “doubts” about the institution.

“Privately, George Washington often expressed discomfort with the institution and a desire to see it abolished,” it reads. “Yet as a Virginia plantation owner, his wealth and livelihood were deeply tied to it.”