Orwellian overreach: Feds slammed for takedown of Philly slavery exhibit

PHILADELPHIA (CN) — Comparing the Trump administration to one of the most famous totalitarian governments in literature, a federal judge ordered the Interior Department to restore slavery exhibits at George Washington’s former home in a strong rebuke of the current president’s efforts to reshape how Americans remember their nation’s history.

U.S. District Court Judge Cynthia M. Rufe’s ruling centered around the National Park Service’s Jan. 22 removal of informational panels and video presentations from the President’s House site in Philadelphia, where Washington had enslaved nine people during and after the nation’s founding. The city of Philadelphia sued the agency hours after the exhibits’ removal, claiming the federal government had no authority to do so without the city’s approval.

Ruling in favor of the city on Presidents’ Day, the George W. Bush appointee opened her opinion with an excerpt from George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984."

“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.”

Rufe continued, comparing the government’s actions to those of Orwell's fictional IngSoc party: “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. It does not.”

Rufe’s order to restore the exhibits hinged on three arguments made by the city, all of which asserted that the exhibits’ removals were arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act.

First, Rufe noted the President’s House site had been included in the National Underground Network to Freedom, a congressionally ratified series of over 800 locations relating to the Underground Railroad. By removing information connecting the President’s House to the Underground Railroad — enslaved woman Oney Judge fled from Washington’s home in May 1796 — the Interior Department unlawfully rejected congressional directives, Rufe found.

Rufe then highlighted two existing agreements between the city and Interior Department that underpin the President’s House site — one in 1950 that established mutual stewardship of the Independence Mall grounds, and one in 2006 that established the President’s House monument.

Under both congressionally backed agreements, major alterations to the site must have written consent from both the Interior Department and the city — consent the city did not give.

While the federal government argued a March 2025 executive order authorized the National Park Service to remove the exhibits, Rufe found the order cannot supersede Congress’ authority.

“Defendants’ professed rationale, Executive Order 14253, specifically directs the secretary of the Interior to take action ‘as appropriate and consistent with applicable law,’” Rufe wrote. “It does not and cannot confer to defendants any authority to violate or disregard congressional intent.”

Rufe excoriated the Interior Department’s actions as a brazen turnaround in agency policy without reasoned explanation. While the government again relied on Trump’s March 2025 executive order as rationale for the policy shift, Rufe ultimately rejected the argument.

“The government shrugs off NPS’ action as within its power and discretion, but that action violates the expressed intention of the same executive order the government claims motivated it,” Rufe wrote. “Executive Order 14253 seeks to prevent revisionist attempts to ‘replace objective facts with a distorted narrative.’ NPS’ action did the opposite, by dismantling objective historical truths.’”

Rufe again drew parallels between the Trump administration’s actions and those of totalitarian leader Big Brother in Orwell’s “1984.”

“The government here likewise asserts that truth is no longer self-evident, but rather the property of the elected chief magistrate and his appointees and delegees, at his whim to be scraped clean, hidden, or overwritten,” Rufe wrote. “And why? Solely because, as defendants state, it has the power.

"An agency, whether the Department of the Interior, NPS or any other agency, cannot arbitrarily decide what is true, based on its own whims or the whims of the new leadership, regardless of the evidence before it.”

While not a final ruling, the preliminary injunction requires the Interior Department to restore the President’s House site “to its physical status as of Jan. 21, 2026” — one day prior to the department’s removal of the slavery exhibits. The order also enjoins the department from altering or damaging the exhibits without the city of Philadelphia’s consent while litigation continues.

In a statement to Courthouse News on Tuesday, an Interior Department spokesperson expressed disapproval of Rufe’s ruling.

“The National Park Service routinely updates exhibits across the park system to ensure historical accuracy and completeness, the spokesperson said. “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 Interior Department filed an appeal of the ruling late Monday night.

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