PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — A judge says the Trump administration has until 5 p.m. Friday to restore displays about slavery at the President’s House site on Philadelphia’s Independence Mall.
The displays tell the story of nine people enslaved by George Washington at his former home.
In Wednesday’s ruling, U.S. Senior Judge Cynthia M. Rufe said the Department of the Interior failed to comply with her original order to restore the exhibit “forthwith.”
On Monday, Rufe granted an injunction ordering that the materials be restored while a lawsuit over the removal proceeds, and barring Trump officials from creating new interpretations of the site’s history.
Then, on Tuesday, Trump Administration filed a notice of appeal with the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, also based in Philadelphia.
The Justice Department insists the administration alone can decide what stories are told at National Park Service properties.
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Rufe, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, compared President Donald Trump’s administration to the totalitarian regime in the dystopian novel “1984,” which revised historical records to align with its narrative.
“As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims – to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts,” Rufe wrote. “It does not.”
A person moves to photograph the location of the now removed explanatory panels that were part of an exhibit on slavery at President’s House Site in Philadelphia, Jan. 30, 2026.
AP Photo/Matt Rourke
Park service workers last month abruptly removed exhibits from the Philadelphia site, prompting the city and other supporters of the exhibit to sue.
The historical site is among several where the administration has quietly removed content about the history of enslaved people, LGBTQ+ people and Native Americans.
Millions of people are expected to visit Philadelphia, the nation’s birthplace, this year for the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding in 1776.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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