Trump administration appeals restoration of slavery exhibit at Presidents House

The federal government has filed an appeal after a judge ruled, earlier this week, to restore an exhibit focused on slavery at the Presidents House in Philadelphia’s Old City neighborhood.

But, with her ruling, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe didn’t mince words.

In fact, she chose her words specifically — citing George Orwell’s classic tale of governmental oppression, 1984, in the introduction to her decision.

“All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place,” a quote from 1984 that Rufe included in her ruling.

In her ruling, Rufe called for the federal government to restore the exhibit that had been removed and prohibited federal agencies from making any changes to the site without mutual agreement from the City of Philadelphia.

“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 in her ruling. “It does not.”

In calling for the restoration of the exhibit, Rufe noted that both parties accept that the displays were historically accurate prior to their removal and there is public interest in preserving and exhibiting them at the site.

Attorneys for federal agencies, Rufe said in her ruling, argued that the removals should be permitted claiming that it’s in the public’s interest for the government to “convey its preferred speech.”

“Restoration of the President’s House does not infringe upon the government’s free speech, nor is the government prevented from conveying whatever message it wants to send by wiping away the history of the greatest Founding Father’s management of persons he held in bondage,” Rufe wrote in her ruling.

But, on Monday evening, the Trump administration, through the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Trump administration filed an appeal to Rufe’s ruling, saying the removal of the exhibit was done to “ensure historical accuracy and completeness.”

“We disagree with the court’s ruling. The National Park Service routinely updates exhibits across the park system to ensure historical accuracy and completeness,” the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior wrote in a statement to NBC10. “If not for this unnecessary judicial intervention, updated interpretive materials providing a fuller account of the history of slavery at Independence Hall would have been installed in the coming days.”

The federal agency did not immediately detail what might be included in this “fuller account of the history of slavery at Independence Hall,” might include nor did the federal agency discuss why city officials had not been alerted to the decision to alter the exhibit before it was removed.

Mayor Cherelle Parker has said that, since 2006, there has been a cooperative agreement between the city and the federal government that calls for officials to meet and confer before any changes could be made to existing exhibits.