The dispute began after President Donald Trump issued a March 2025 executive order directing federal historical sites to emphasize the country’s achievements and remove material deemed to “inappropriately disparage” Americans. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum later ordered the park service to implement that directive.
On Jan. 22, park service employees removed almost every interpretive panel from the President’s House and shut down its video presentations without notifying the city.
Philadelphia sued that same day.
The city and park service had worked together for more than a decade to develop the exhibit, which opened in 2010 after the city invested millions of dollars in the project. Their joint development plan required the site’s interpretation to include the people who lived and worked in the house and the systems and methods of slavery.
The President’s House later became part of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, in recognition of its connection to Oney Judge, who escaped Washington’s enslavement in 1796.
U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe initially sided with Philadelphia and ordered the government to restore the exhibit. During an earlier hearing, Rufe called the administration’s claim of broad control over the history presented on federal property “dangerous.”
The administration appealed, arguing the federal government owned the site and the exhibit and was entitled to determine what message it conveyed there.
The 3rd Circuit overturned Rufe’s injunction on June 18. The unanimous ruling was written by Judge Thomas M. Hardiman, a George W. Bush appointee, and joined by Judges Luis F. Restrepo, appointed by Barack Obama, and Peter J. Phipps, appointed by Trump.
En banc reviews are rarely granted and are generally reserved for cases involving conflicts with controlling precedent or questions of exceptional importance. Philadelphia argues this case meets both standards because the decision could make a broad category of federal conduct unreviewable.
A spokesperson with the Department of the Interior did not respond to a request for comment.