Dismantled slavery exhibits from the President’s House are being held by Park Service at the National Constitution Center

Informational exhibits about slavery removed by the National Park Service from the President’s House Site last week are being kept in storage at the National Constitution Center, according to a legal filing from the Trump administration.

The exhibits will remain in the park service’s custody at the center, down the street from the President’s House, pending the outcome of the City of Philadelphia’s federal lawsuit against the Department of Interior and the National Park Service for taking down the exhibits.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration is seeking an injunction to return the exhibits to the President’s House, which aims to educate visitors on the horrors of slavery and memorializes the nine people George Washington enslaved at the site during the founding of the United States.

The location of the removed exhibits was revealed Wednesday in a motion objecting to the city’s injunction. The motion was filed by U.S. attorneys and assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, representing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, acting National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron, and their respective agencies.

The legal filing also provides further details into what transpired last Thursday when park service employees removed exhibits about slavery at the President’s House.

Park service employees dismantled the exhibit after Bowron ordered Steve Sims, the park service’s acting regional director, to have workers remove the panels and turn off video displays at the site, according to the filing. Sims said the takedown was carried out the same day that Bowron requested it.

There is also a remaining sign made of wood in a metal structure that was not removed last week because additional tools were needed.

“When and if NPS removes the sign, it will be stored with the other panels,” Sims said in a declaration included in the legal filing.

The footprints embedded in the site and the Memorial Wall featuring the names of the nine people Washington enslaved will stay at the President’s House, he said.

Last year, Burgum and President Donald Trump ordered content at national parks that could “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living” to be reviewed and potentially removed.

In addition to the actions in Philadelphia, the National Park Service has reportedly removed signage about the mistreatment of Native Americans from the Grand Canyon, among other changes implemented under the orders.

Tuesday’s filing previews the Trump administration’s legal argument for a hearing scheduled Friday on Philadelphia’s suit, which could be used in other cases around the country.

The attorneys claim in the filing that this case is “fundamentally a question of Government speech,” and they accuse the city of trying to “censor” the federal government.

“Such interests are especially weighty where, as here, the City effectively seeks to compel the Federal government to engage in speech that it does not wish to convey,” the attorneys wrote.

The city’s suit has received legal backing from Gov. Josh Shapiro and the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, an advocacy group that helped establish the President’s House in the early 2000s.

The exhibit takedown has been a heartbreak for those who helped develop the site and for Philadelphians who have left artwork memorializing what the site used to be.

In a video posted to social media Tuesday, Parker said that her administration would keep “fighting” to have the panels restored to the site as the city prepares to play a central role in the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations in July.

“This history is a critical part of our nation’s origins, and it deserves to be seen and heard, not just by the people of Philadelphia, but by every person who comes to Philadelphia from around our nation and the world to see and learn from, especially as we celebrate our Semiquincentennial 250th birthday, I want the world to know you cannot erase our history,” she said.