Slavery exhibits at President’s House can be replaced by Trump administration, Third Circuit rules

President Donald Trump’s administration can replace the slavery exhibit it removed in January from George Washington’s Philadelphia Executive Mansion, a federal appeals court ruled.

A three-judge Third Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously agreed Thursday to toss out an injunction issued by a Philadelphia district court judge in February that ordered the National Park Service to restore interpretive panels telling the history of the nine individuals who were enslaved by Washington at the President’s House.

The judges further found that the federal government’s proposed replacement panels, which historians say whitewash Washington’s role in slavery, “are full of historical context.”

The proposed panels“highlight the momentous events that took place in the President’s House and the other sites at Independence National Historical Park,” Judge Thomas M. Hardiman, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in the opinion. “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.”

It was not immediately clear what would happen next. The federal government did not immediately outline its next steps, and there are conflicting court rulings over the Trump administration’s push to remove content from national parks that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living.”

The city was unable to convince the Third Circuit it has joint decision making power with the federal government over the entirety of Independence National Historic Park because of the local ownership of Independence Hall.

Philadelphia has standing to argue in court that the federal government violated the contract signed when the city donated the President’s House to the National Park Service, Hardiman wrote. The agreement included a guarantee the federal agency would maintain the site.

But to keep the injunction alive, standing is not enough. The city had to prove it could win based on that argument, and the judges disagreed.

“The duty to ‘maintain’ is better understood as a general management obligation that accompanies ownership, not a promise that the exhibits will forever remain in place regardless of the owner’s wishes,” the opinion said.

The city’s claim that the removal was “arbitrary and capricious” under the Administrative Procedure Act also didn’t find purchase. The federal law only allows challenges to “final” agency actions, but the newly proposed panels show the January removal was not the Trump administration’s “last word on the matter.”

The ruling vacates District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe’s injunction from February that ordered the full restoration of the site to its state before exhibits were removed. The National Park Service restored most exhibits, but some metal interpretive panels couldn’t be reinstalled because they required fixes.

The city had no immediate comment on the ruling.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Interior simply said: “Trust in Trump.”

The ruling is an inflection point in the tumultuous legal saga over whether the federal government has power to determine which version of U.S. history is displayed for public viewing — an issue even more salient ahead of the country’s 250th birthday on July Fourth.

The court’s opinion comes after almost a year of scrutiny of the site from Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

That effort culminated in the Trump administration ordering the removal of the site’s exhibits in January. Almost six months later, the government offered up its own vision for how those panels would be replaced.

The Third Circuit praised the Trump administration’s proposed new panels that were quietly uploaded online to the National Park Service website in April.

An Inquirer review of the panels found that the federal government softened Washington’s role as an enslaver. Historians of the President’s House argued the original panels were accurate, well-researched, and site-specific.

But the ruling says the Trump administration’s proposed displays offer a nuanced view on Washington’s and John Adams’ roles or opinions on slavery, adequately highlight the stories of the nine people Washington enslaved at his Philadelphia residence, thoroughly acknowledge the horrors and brutality of slavery, and uplift key figures in Black history.

“One panel.. explains that Washington ‘often expressed discomfort with the institution and a desire to see it abolished,” but, ‘as a Virginia plantation owner, his wealth and livelihood were deeply tied to it,’“ Hardiman wrote. ”Other panels provide an even broader overview of slavery and the struggle to extirpate it."

The ruling landed just over two weeks before the July 4 celebration that marks the country’s 250th anniversary. Attorneys for the federal government said the new panels had been manufactured and were ready to be installed.

And last week a Massachusetts district judge ordered the Trump administration to restore all exhibits it had removed as part of its “restoring truth and sanity to American history” push. Justice Department attorneys have asked for a stay on the ruling and filed an appeal to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

There isn’t a prescriptive way to resolve such conflicting rulings out of different circuits, legal scholars said. Which order ends up prevailing will depend on whether the Massachusetts ruling is stayed, or if the issue escalates to the Supreme Court.

This is a developing story and will be updated.