A University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School clinic filed a brief supporting a preliminary injunction that would halt the removal of a slavery exhibit at the President’s House Site in Independence National Historical Park.
Filed in April alongside the Legal Defense Fund, the brief was submitted on behalf of two Pennsylvania organizations: the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition and African American walking tour company The Black Journey. The exhibit’s removal — affecting a memorial dedicated to nine people enslaved by George Washington — began in January under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump.
A federal district court paused the dismantling in February by granting a preliminary injunction. The brief argued that the National Park Service and Department of Interior’s removal of the exhibit was “potentially motivated by a discriminatory purpose.”
LDF assistant counsel Avatara Smith-Carrington told The Daily Pennsylvanian that the “hope” of the amicus brief was to “make clear for the Third Circuit all that's at stake in terms of the removal of these important pieces of our shared history.”
Smith-Carrington added that the brief examined the impact of the exhibit’s removal as well as the broader implications of “what it means to actually deny people the ability to interact with information about the truth about our nation's founding.”
The brief also described the exhibit’s removal as an “arbitrary and capricious” violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which “stipulates the ways in which federal agencies may make and enforce regulations.”
According to Smith-Carrington, the measure was intended to show how the National Park Service’s actions following the executive order “quickly moved to begin to target and identify” sites that focused on the “contributions of Black people to this country.”
“It is kind of concerning that we would see an agency move so quickly to remove these important parts from our shared history without thought to the impact that it would have on the public,” they added.
RELATED:
Independence National Park dismantles slavery exhibits following Trump directive
Slavery exhibit restoration stalled at Independence Park as legal fight continues
The brief described the exhibit’s dismantling as a “coordinated effort to erase the history of slavery,” drawing a pattern with removals of signage from other historical sites and Harriet Tubman’s image from the Underground Railroad website.
History Professor Kathleen Brown, one of the historians who signed the amicus brief, told the DP that this pattern signaled an attempt to “sugarcoat the past.”
“History is not supposed to be about protecting the brand,” Brown said. “History is supposed to be about reckoning with the past. It’s never served any group or state any good to try to pretend things didn’t happen.”
Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history and education, said that while the removal of the President’s House exhibit is an example of the White House “actively trying to alter history,” there is danger “in imagining that there’s no defense to it.”
“Some of the legitimate concerns about Trump can also sometimes spawn a sort of political apathy or quiescence,” Zimmerman said. “We have to underscore that what we’re seeing is also a strong effort to defend history. Everything depends on resistance and on raising your voice.”
Trump graduated from the Wharton School in 1968.
1991 School of Arts and Sciences Ph.D. graduate Sharon Holt called the brief “very good” — not only for the case, but also for “community and the civic impact of history censorship.”
Holt, who helped create the President’s House Site while serving as the editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, added that the continued legal challenges “keep expanding the reach and the importance” of the case while growing “the circle of people who know and care” about it.
The President’s House opened in 2010 after archaeological work found remains of slaves’ quarters in the house Washington lived in during his presidency. More than a dozen displays about slavery were flagged by the Trump administration’s July 2025 review and initially slated for removal in September 2025.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration filed a federal lawsuit on Jan. 22 against the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro later submitted an amicus brief backing the city’s suit.
The Department of the Interior appealed the ruling to restore the exhibits on Feb. 20.
