NPCA/Democracy Forward Litigation, History and Science Erasure
Messaging UPDATED: February 2026
Top Takeaway:
The Trump administration is erasing history and censoring science at our national parks, undermining the mission of the National Park Service and threatening the very ideals of America.
National parks are America’s classrooms that we visit to learn, recreate and be inspired.
Removing factual information from our national parks robs visitors of the chance to fully experience these places that we know, love and want to protect and preserve in perpetuity
The National Parks Conservation Association is vehemently opposed to censorship in our national parks. Together with Democracy Forward and partners, we’re taking the administration to court because their censorship campaign violates the values and mission of the National Park Service, an agency known for its worldclass interpretation and science that millions of visitors from around the world come to our 433 park units to experience.
This is a fight for the soul of our national parks, and our country itself.
Word of Caution and Best Practices for NPCA Staff:
Due to our active legal campaign, all media inquiries related to erasure must go through your communications liaison before engaging with reporters in any way. They will also alert Democracy Forward. Please remember that media inquiries related to litigation MUST use these talking points. If you get questions that are not covered by these talking points, decline to comment or speculate and alert your comms liaison for potential follow-up.
Whenever possible, refer to Secretarial Order 3431 as “The erasing history and science executive order,” or “Trump’s executive order to erase history and science says…” or “Burgum’s order to erase history.”
For staff only (don’t say this to reporters): Parks that submitted no items for erasure review were flagged and asked to reassess so some examples were given as a way to replace old signage or to remain under the radar. Please continue tracking park-level nuances and ground-truthing with your community. If possible, visit sites directly and take photos—these are helpful for NPCA’s external outreach and potential media use.
Please fact check sign/exhibit/brochure removals that are being reported to you by partners or NPS contacts. There is a lot of misinformation and confusion out there, often due to the administration being so unclear and contradictory. If you or a member of the press has not personally confirmed a sign removal, don’t use it as a public example.
Topline messages:
The Trump administration is suppressing truth, history and science at our national parks, and that should alarm every single American.
We’re filing this lawsuit on behalf of our members because government censorship in our national parks violates the very ideals our country was built on. Telling the truth is a foundation of our democracy. The American people do not want our history erased or our science cast away at our national parks, which belong to all of us. We want to learn about our achievements and tragedies alike.
Our founder called NPCA fearless and outspoken defenders of the parks. From communities to Congress to courtrooms, NPCA fights to strengthen and defend the laws that protect our national parks, including the precious history, wildlife, and wonder found there. It’s time to be fearless and outspoken about this.
In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order to rewrite and sanitize American history and science at national parks. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum followed suit on May 20, issuing a secretarial order that launched the implementation of the president’s directive within the National Park Service.
These orders force national park staff to remove or censor exhibits that talk about factually accurate history or science that this administration would rather hide, regardless of their accuracy. That includes many exhibits that discuss the history of slavery, civil rights, our country’s treatment of Native Americans, climate science, and other American truths.
Removing factual signs about climate change from iconic places like Acadia National Park and Fort Sumter robs park visitors of valuable information. The administration has taken a crowbar to American history, dismantling the President’s House exhibit at Independence National Historical Park, keeping the truths of slavery from park visitors’ eyes.
Americans can handle the truth and expect to learn it when visiting our national parks. Americans rely on our national parks, battlefields and historic sites for authentic, honest experiences. They should be able to trust that when they visit a national park, they get an honest account of what happened there. Not a story that has been scrubbed to only cast interpretation in a positive light—visitors know battles are bloody, it took centuries for women and people of color to get the right to vote, and wildlife have been harmed to the brink of extinction. The American public can handle the truth.
Our parks protect a complex, sometimes difficult history – a history of war, loss, triumph, and joy alike. Parks bring people together through these stories. Our history defines who we are as Americans, and we are stronger for it, regardless of our political background.
National parks are at the forefront of people seeing the impacts of climate change, from melting glaciers to record flooding and storms to disastrous wildfires. Removing information about climate change, pollution, development, and other environmental threats to our parks doesn’t make those threats less real. Visitors want to hear the truth about threats to our parks.
About our legal action:
NPCA is represented by Democracy Forward. Co-plaintiffs include the Association of National Park Rangers, Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, American Association for State and Local History, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Society for Experiential Graphic Design.
Together, we’re fighting to ensure national parks keep telling honest and accurate stories that are important to both our past and our future.
Our lawsuit focuses on the National Park Service’s departure from its longtime goal of “Telling All Americans’ Stories” and its congressionally-mandated obligation to ensure the “highest quality interpretation and education.”
The unprecedented order to erase history is an attack on the ability of our park system to maintain its obligation to preserve and educate the public on our history.
Specifically, our claim alleges that the secretarial order violates the National Park Service’s statutory mandates under the 1916 Organic Act (as amended), the 1998 Omnibus Management Act, the 2016 Centennial Act, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976.
The Centennial Act requires NPS to ensure the “highest quality interpretation and education” and provide interpretation that reflects “different cultural backgrounds, ages, education, gender, abilities, ethnicity, and needs.
NPCA anticipates hundreds of signs and exhibits being removed in the coming weeks to months, which is why we are taking legal action.
Stripping history and science away strips our national parks of their integrity. Knowing that even workbooks for junior ranger programs could be removed from parks is a stunning reversal of the education mission of our parks and disrupts the very foundation of the National Park System.
National Park Service staff work tirelessly to provide park visitors with a truthful accounting of the people and places at the center of that history as well as proven science that informs conservation across the country.
Supporting Messages:
This systematic censorship is deeply unpopular with Americans across the political spectrum. A NPCA poll found that more than 3 in 4 Americans (78%) agree that national parks should not remove photos, signs or other materials that tell factual aspects of America’s history.
In addition to our litigation, we are calling on Congress to reject administration efforts to erase or rewrite our nation’s history or remove proven science from our parks.
The Park Service is one of the country’s largest repositories of American history, teaching millions of park visitors about a wide variety of American stories at more than 430 national park sites throughout the United States.
More than two thirds of our national park sites are primarily dedicated to protecting and telling American history, but you’ll find American history and culture in all our parks.
Students and scholars seeking to learn more about U.S. history rely on the National Park Service’s expertise and accurate information, in person and on the agency website.
The administration is putting our rangers in an impossible position. If Park Service staff don’t comply with the administration’s orders, they could lose their jobs.
National parks unite us. Parks bring people together through our shared history. Our history defines who we are as Americans, and we are stronger for it. That truthful and factual accounting of history and science at national parks should not change, regardless of which political party is in power.
The Department of the Interior has issued conflicting, contradictory, and confusing statements about what materials are under review or what signs or brochures have been removed. This has created chaos at national parks.
Background on the Executive Order, Secretarial Order
On March 27, 2025, the president issued an executive order calling for the restoration of “truth and sanity” to American history. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum followed suit on May 20, issuing a secretarial order that launched the implementation of the president’s directive within the Park Service.
As a result of this order, National Park Service rangers were forced to put up signs at every single national park, asking visitors to report so-called negative information being shared there about past or living Americans. Each sign includes a QR code for people to report their findings to the park.
A brief NPCA analysis of the QR code messages shared (as of August 2025) showed overwhelming support for Park Service rangers and accurate and factual interpretation of science and history.
National parks impacted by erasure:
The removals started slowly in the summer and early fall of 2025 but have accelerated in early 2026. All across the country, signs are going down, and crucial information about race, climate change, Indigenous history is being erased from our parks. Here are some examples:
At Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, park staff followed administration orders to dismantle the President’s House exhibit, which told the story of enslaved people at George Washington’s home.
At Fort Sumter, Park Service staff followed administration orders to remove signs that informed visitors about sea level rise that threatens the fort. Fort Sumter is the site of the start of the Civil War and is one of the national parks most threatened by climate change.
At Acadia National Park, signs were removed from the summit of Cadillac Mountain and Great Meadow wetland, two prominent destinations in the park. These signs refer to the park’s changing climate, including more frequent storms, intense rain and hotter temperatures.
As reported by the NYT, Lowell National Historical Park was ordered to stop showing films about the grueling conditions endured by mill workers, including women and immigrants, in the early 19th century, including long hours and low wages.
At Grand Teton National Park, signage discussing the complicated legacy of Gustavus Cheyney Doane, a key member of an early Yellowstone expedition who had participated in a massacre of Native Americans, has reportedly been removed.
At Muir Woods National Park, rangers were forced to take down a creative exhibit that discussed the role of women in protecting the park and biographical, fact-checked information about Muir.
Even before the March secretarial order, the administration demonstrated its first efforts to censor U.S. history by erasing LGBTQ+ history from more than a dozen Park Service webpages in February 2025, particularly the contributions of the transgender community at Stonewall National Monument.
The terms “transgender” and “queer” have been removed from all the Park Service websites, and LGBTQ+ has been shortened to LGB, often inaccurately.
For example, the government deleted a webpage on Marsha P. Johnson, one of the most prominent transgender historical figures. She was an activist heavily involved with the Stonewall movement.
They deleted a webpage on Reminder Days, an annual LGBTQ rights protest held at Independence Hall in Philadelphia during the 1960s.
Possibly the biggest deletion was the LGBTQ Theme Study. The LGBTQ Theme Study is a groundbreaking academic analysis of LGBTQ people’s place in American history. It talks about historical events like the Stonewall riots, the Lavender Scare and more. It talks about people like gay Civil Rights Movement leader Bayard Rustin, and Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay elected officials. NPCA is now hosting the theme study on our website.
