Lawsuit challenges National Park Service over content removal, including at a Mass. site

A coalition of advocacy groups has filed a federal lawsuit in Boston challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape how history is presented at national parks, citing content removals already underway at sites across Massachusetts and New England.

The lawsuit, filed Feb. 17 by Democracy Forward on behalf of six organizations including the National Parks Conservation Association, targets the administration’s “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” executive order. That directive instructs the National Park Service to remove or alter content that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living.”

The executive order has triggered immediate changes at multiple sites, including the removal of historical films at Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts.

“We filed the litigation to stop the Trump administration from erasing history or censoring history at these national park sites,” said Kristen Sykes, Northeast Regional Director for the National Parks Conservation Association.

A subsequent secretarial order from the Department of Interior requires the agency to review monuments, memorials, statues, markers and similar properties. The order mandates installing content that emphasizes “the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people” or the “beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape.”

Massachusetts is home to 18 National Park Service sites that could be affected by the administration’s directives.

According to the complaint, the Secretary of the Interior directed Park Service staff to “immediately undertake” efforts to identify and report “disfavored information” after the executive order was adopted. In February, park staff were informed that all new public-facing content must be submitted to the Interior Department for review before release.

At Lowell National Historical Park, officials stopped showing two films about labor history “to ensure compliance with the Interior Secretary’s order,” the lawsuit states. The films addressed harsh working conditions and industrial pollution.

The legal challenge represents a broader conflict over historical interpretation at federal sites across the country.

In Philadelphia, portions of an exhibit about the history of slavery at Independence National Historical Park were removed in January, prompting a separate legal battle. A federal judge ordered the exhibit restored, and approximately half the panels were reinstalled before an appeals court halted further work pending appeal.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker celebrated the partial restoration while acknowledging the ongoing legal fight. “We will handle all legal challenges that arise with the same rigor and gravity as we have done thus far,” Parker said.

The Philadelphia case stems from the same executive order framework, which called for removing properties that perpetuate what the administration deemed a “false reconstruction of American history.”

Separately, Vietnam War veterans and a retired architectural historian have filed another federal lawsuit seeking to block construction of a proposed monument near Arlington National Cemetery. That suit challenges plans for “Independence Arch,” a 250-foot structure that plaintiffs call a “vanity project” that would disrupt the sightline between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House.

The Arlington lawsuit names President Trump, senior White House officials and the National Park Service as defendants. It alleges violations of the Commemorative Works Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.

The White House and National Park Service have not responded to requests for comment on the Arlington lawsuit.