FEATURE
“Truth” and “Sanity” in American History
A panoramic view from Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, Maine. In the foreground is the rocky, open mountain summit, and in the distance appear views of the surrounding forest and more distant bodies of water. Photo courtesy of the editors.
Note: This article presents data current as of magazine production on May 1, 2026.
On March 31, 2025, the President of the United States signed Executive Order (EO) 14253, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” It states that the policy of the current administration is “to restore federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.”
The order goes on to instruct the Smithsonian and the Department of the Interior (DOI), which manages the National Park Service, to seek out “improper ideology” and remove content that has “been changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.” It also specifies that the Department of the Interior must ensure “that all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties…do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times), and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape.”
This article provides a detailed account of how the EO has been implemented to date, highlights interpretive themes and content which have been deemed “improper,” and seeks to amplify the efforts of those resisting partisan censorship both inside and outside the government. If left unchecked, there is no reason to believe this administration will stop at the Smithsonian and National Park Service, so now is the time for all interpreters to speak up and resist. We must protect the integrity of our field, stand as a bulwark against attacks on free speech, and ensure that the stories that this administration seeks to erase continue to be told.
“This Is Special Ground” sign removed from Acadia National Park. Photo courtesy of Save Our Signs.
Department of the Interior
In May 2025, in response to EO 14253, The Secretary of the Interior issued Secretarial Order (SO) 3431, which directed agency heads to identify exhibits and content that had been changed since January 1, 2020, determine if those changes were due to “improper ideology,” and if so undertake actions to revert them back to their original state. Additionally, the order instructed the agencies to “review of all public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties on lands within its jurisdiction” for content which “perpetuates a false reconstruction of American history” in violation of the president’s executive order. The SO offers no specifics or examples of what would or would not be acceptable under the policy.
In the order, the Secretary of the Interior also directed staff to encourage public participation in the effort by posting signage throughout their management units that encourages visitors to submit feedback on sites regarding compliance with the EO. Within weeks, signs began appearing in National Parks throughout the country that asked visitors to report “any signs of information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur of landscapes and other natural features.”
In August 2025, The Guardian reported that, after reviewing a trove of 500 leaked responses, “visitors have mostly been reluctant to demand the removal of park materials about the darker chapters of America’s past, such as slavery or the mistreatment of Native tribes.”
Sources with firsthand experience report that all 433 park units have submitted self-evaluations of exhibits and those evaluations are being reviewed by DOI and Park Service leaders. They also say that if an exhibition or sign is found to be out of compliance, parks are not provided with specific reasons why but must plan replacements that must be approved by DOI in advance of installation. Parks are not being provided with any additional funding to make these updates and changes.
“Acadia’s Future Will Be Warmer And Wetter” sign removed from Acadia National Park. Photo courtesy of Save Our Signs.
“Look Down” climate change sign removed from Acadia National Park. Photo courtesy of Save Our Signs.
Over the last 6 months, multiple outlets have reported on internal National Park Service documents and memos that suggest that in order to comply with these directives park service staff have flagged a wide range of content, including the mistreatment of Native Americans, slavery, climate change, and other environmental problems.
In early March, a list of exhibits and signs flagged by park staff was leaked online and, according to The Washington Post, “The tone and content of the materials described and submitted to Interior by park managers vary widely, reflecting a mix of careful attempts to obey administration orders, confusion about what might violate them and, at times, apparent skepticism about the entire endeavor” and that park staff “struggled with what exactly might violate Trump’s order not to “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”
The Department of the Interior is not informing the public when changes are made, but numerous specific examples of signage being changed or removed at national parks have been documented. The first example reported on was at Muir Woods National Monument where, in July 2025, staff removed signage “highlighting the foundational roles of women and Indigenous people in its creation and the oftentimes racist and violent past of [the park’s] more notable founders.”
Since then, signs on climate change, slavery, and the treatment of Native Americans have all been confirmed to have been removed from parks across the country. Some examples—like the references to enslaved people at Independence National Historic Park that the administration wants to replace with content that seems to excuse the behavior of white historic figures, or “The Scourged Back” photo removed from Fort Pulaski National Monument—have grabbed national attention and sparked outcry. However, other removals—such as signs about Native Americans removed from Acadia National Park or an exhibit titled “Hard History” taken down at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge—have garnered less attention.
Other underreported examples include an interpretive display at Fort Sumter National Monument, which described how the island fortress could be underwater by the end of the century due to climate change, and a sign that included details of how a prominent white explorer participated in and bragged about massacring Native Americans at Grand Teton National Park. Both of these came down in January 2026. In the case of the exhibit in the Tetons, the Department of the Interior claims that the panel was removed due to “routine sign maintenance and interpretive updates” and that “claims that parks are erasing history or removing signs wholesale are inaccurate.” However, an anonymous source in the National Park Service says that this exhibit appeared in the database of flagged content before it was taken down, which contradicts DOI’s statements.
Physical exhibits and signs are not the only types of interpretive content being removed by the Department of the Interior as part of this project. In April 2025, CNN reported that a portrait of Harriet Tubman and accompanying quote were removed from a National Park Service website about the underground railroad. Since then, The Uncensored Project has documented over “100 NPS webpages [that] have been deactivated and, in a more subtle attempt at erasure, over 200 references to ‘LGBTQ’ have been changed to ‘LGB.’”
Another nearly invisible form of censorship is the cancellation of in-progress exhibit renovations. According to a source inside the National Park Service, several contracts for in-progress work were terminated when the content was found to be out of compliance. One example is a set of exhibits for Harper’s Ferry National Historical Park that were being designed in consultation with local Native American tribal nations to tell their stories. The project was canceled despite having made it three-quarters of the way through the design and review process. An exhibit designer with experience contracting with the Park Service estimates that DOI likely already paid a vendor between $150,000 and $200,000 to get a project of this scope to that point in the process.
“The Dirty Business of Slavery” sign removed from Independence National Historic Site. Photo courtesy of Save Our Signs.
The Smithsonian Institution
Our national museum system, The Smithsonian Institution, was also included in EO 14253 and the Vice President has been given the task of overseeing the removal of “improper ideology” from its galleries. The Vice President traditionally serves on the board of the Smithsonian Institution while in office, and the current VP, Politico reports, “has asserted for years that progressive ideologies, particularly those that posit that the U.S. was built on systemic racism, undercut Americans’ sense of national pride and contribute to stagnation and despair.” However, at the time of this article’s creation, the Vice President has not made any formal statements or given any public comments about his role in this project.
The Smithsonian Institution is governed by a 17-member Board of Regents, acting as a “trust instrumentality” of the U.S. government. It is overseen by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Vice President, three Senators, three House members, and nine citizen regents. While created by Congress and receiving federal funding, the Smithsonian operates independently of the government. Unlike agencies within the Department of the Interior, the administration cannot make changes to exhibits by mandate alone. Instead, they are threatening to cut off the over $1 billion in funding the institution gets from the government, which makes up 62% of the total operating budget.
On August 12, 2025, a letter signed by three executive branch political appointees, including a co-author of the now infamous Project 2025, was sent to the Institution’s Secretary and posted on the White House’s official web page. It stresses that the institution focus on “Americanism—the people, principles, and progress that define our nation.” The letter specified that all Smithsonian Institution Museums submit evaluations of current and upcoming exhibitions, as well as curatorial policies and practices to the White House to be reviewed for improper ideology or risk major funding cuts. The letter states that the “initiative aims to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.” It goes on to charge institution staff to conduct “a review of exhibition text, wall didactics, websites, educational materials, and digital and social media content to assess tone, historical framing, and alignment with American ideals.”
Later that same month, the official webpage of the White House posted an article titled “President Trump is Right About the Smithsonian,” which lists 20 exhibits that presumably don’t comply with the executive order. The exhibits highlighted in the post include ones that discussed “white privilege,” “ramifications of the southern border wall,” an “intersex inclusive pride flag,” an art exhibit that included feminist literature, exhibits with LGBTPQIA+ and Latino themes, and exhibits that delve into colonization, slavery, and race.
While the post offered no specifics as how these particular exhibits demonstrate that the President was right, a Truth Social post from around the same time states that “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”
The letter gave staff 120 days (until December 10, 2025) to implement content changes. However, on December 18, the White House posted another public letter that thanks the Smithsonian Secretary for the initial documents received, but states that “the overwhelming majority of requested items remain outstanding” and specifically requests “current wall texts and didactics, exhibition proposals and budgets, object checklists for upcoming programming, internal governance manuals, and chain-of-command records for content approval.” It gave the museums until January 13, 2026, to comply with the renewed demands.
Following the January deadline, multiple outlets reported that the Smithsonian had turned over large quantities of additional documents and would continue to do so, with one outlet quoting an internal email where the Institution Secretary told staff that they would “continue to engage the White House, Congress, and government stakeholders” and that “as a public service institution, we are committed to being transparent and open.”
A closer look at the “The Dirty Business of Slavery” sign removed from Independence National Historic Site. Photo courtesy of Save Our Signs.
The Smithsonian Board of Regents meets five times a year to manage the governance of the institution. The “approved agendas,” going back to the beginning of 2024, are publicly available, and in the six meetings that have occurred since March 2025, there has been no specific mention of the executive order. However, starting in April 2025, most of the meeting agendas include an agenda item—“Changes to Smithsonian Operating Environment”—that had not appeared previously. The two meetings since the EO only include an “Executive Session” and no other agenda items. Before the EO, no meetings had been formatted this way. Activists who are monitoring the situation at the Smithsonian believe that if significant changes are coming, they will occur after the Board of Regents meeting on April 13, 2026.
It is also worth noting that two of the Citizen Regents’ terms expire in 2026 and replacements have yet to be named. This is a major deviation from the institution’s standard procedures and reporting suggests it is part of an effort by the administration to gain control of the board.
To date, there have been far fewer documented changes to the public Smithsonian galleries than at parks, but in July 2025 it was reported that references to the impeachments of the 45th President were removed from a gallery in the American History Museum. The exhibit has since been replaced and those references returned but they have been moved to a much less prominent position. In January 2026, the National Portrait Gallery removed references to those same impeachments from captions in the America’s Presidents exhibition. At the time, a Smithsonian spokesperson told reporters that the changes were part of planned updates to the whole exhibition.
“Saving Muir Woods,” the first sign removed under the executive order. Photo courtesy of Save Our Signs.
The Response
Civil society groups, including conservation nonprofits, historical associations, museum leaders, and free-speech advocates have broadly criticized government efforts to alter or remove interpretive content. Their responses emphasize threats to historical accuracy, education, scientific integrity, institutional independence, and freedom of expression. Dozens of organizations—including the National Association for Interpretation—have released formal statements condemning censorship and advocating for freedom of speech at federal sites.
As of February 2026, three lawsuits have been filed to fight the removal of content. In January 2026, the City of Philadelphia successfully sued the government over removal of information about enslaved people from Independence National Historic Park. In a February decision, a Republican-appointed District Judge “included multiple references to Orwell [author of the famous anti-censorship allegory “1984”] in her ruling...granting the City of Philadelphia’s request to restore the exhibit panels.” The federal government has appealed the decision, but the exhibits have been restored for the time being.
In February, the National Parks Conservation Association (NCPA) was joined by several other conservation and museum organizations in a suit against the Secretary of the Interior. The suit is intended to broadly halt censorship and content removal at national park sites and in response a Department of the Interior spokesperson told Newsweek “Our parks are nonpartisan, but the NPCA isn't." They added, "Secretary Order 3431 directed a review of certain interpretive content to ensure parks tell the full and accurate story of American history."
A third lawsuit was filed to specifically restore pride flags at Stonewall National Monument, a site dedicated to the story of queer liberation in the United States, and the plaintiffs include the Gilbert Baker Foundation, named after the late artist who designed the flag. On April 12, 2026, the Department of the Interior announced their intent to settle the suit and the pride flags were restored at the monument.
In response to the threat of censorship, there has also been an upwelling of grassroots organizing and at least three coalitions are working to preserve interpretive content at federal sites. The Save Our Signs Project and Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian are both using crowd sourcing to document exhibits and signs at risk of removal from National Parks and the Smithsonian. The Save Our Signs Project has received over 15,000 photos from more than 4,000 people documenting signage at nearly all national park sites. When reached for comment, a representative said, “These signs are intended to provide information about history and science which belongs to everyone, and everyone should have access to it.”
A closer look at the text of “Saving Muir Woods,” the first sign removed under the executive order, detail. Photo courtesy of Save Our Signs.
Highly organized volunteers with Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian have curated an archive of 50,525 photos, which the organization says cover every exhibit currently open to the public within the institution. When asked why the administration might be concerned about specific exhibits or content in the museums, a leader with the group said that “erasing people from the past legitimizes erasing them from the present” and that they want to redefine “who counts as an American.”
Another group, Resistance Rangers, is a collective of current and former National Park Service staff who are working to resist the administration on multiple fronts and is also shining a light on censorship at national parks. They created the “Uncensored Project” mentioned above, and members of their coalition have also been vital in getting information about exhibit evaluation and removal to journalists. Much of the reporting on this topic used in this article uses data they surfaced. According to one member, they are actively working to get more information about exhibits that have been or will be removed to the media and the public.
Conclusion
When asked, people working to resist censorship had several suggestions for what interpreters can do to support their work. These include amplifying information about what’s going on and making sure our own personal circles are activated, reproducing censored content at nonfederal sites nearby where removals have occurred, joining or forming local advocacy groups, writing representatives and demanding they oppose censorship and support Smithsonian independence, and most of all, to continue to tell stories that celebrate the diverse tapestry of people and experiences that have contributed to the American story.
Though it’s never stated outright, clearly the “improper ideology” the administration is trying to remove are narratives that center anyone other than white men in the story of America or suggest we have a role in creating and solving the climate crisis. The censorship at federal sites also demonstrates the power of interpretation. The project of large-scale erasure described in this report is one undertaken out of fear. The movement that has captured our government knows that to be successful they must redefine who does and does not count as an American.
However, the federal administration’s campaign will be unsuccessful if Americans of all colors and creeds come together in opposition—and the administration clearly sees interpretation as a possible nexus for that resistance. They are demanding removal by describing it as anti-American and divisive. But in truth, an honest telling of our nation’s past, which grapples with what it means to be “an American” in the past, present, and future, is a patriotic antidote to the fear and isolation which drives them.
