On Friday, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction to halt and reverse erasure of history at National Park Service (NPS) sites.
The court’s ruling comes in a lawsuit brought by AASLH and a coalition of parks, science, and design groups challenging U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary’s Order 3431, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The Secretary’s Order, like the identically-named Executive Order it was designed to implement, promotes a whitewashed version of the American story and has made it harder for history organizations nationwide to share whole and honest history with the public.
While the litigation proceeds, Friday’s ruling requires the federal government to pause any further enactment of the Secretary’s Order, including the removal of interpretive signage and books from NPS sites, and to restore affected sites.
AASLH is joined in this lawsuit by fellow plaintiffs the National Parks Conservation Association, Association of National Park Rangers, Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, Society for Experiential Graphic Design, and Union of Concerned Scientists. The coalition is represented in the matter by Democracy Forward.
To learn more, read Democracy Forward’s press release about the preliminary injunction. You can read the court’s order here.
AASLH is pushing back on efforts to undermine the nation’s history organizations and to compromise our best practices, but we can’t do it alone. To help support AASLH’s work defending our field, please consider becoming a member or donating to our Annual Fund today.
