The Circuit Courts of Appeal were playing a bit of role-reversal on Thursday, as the traditionally more conservative 5th Circuit handed the Trump administration a loss on immigration policy, while the traditionally more liberal 1st Circuit handed the administration a win on National Park Service (NPS) displays. In the NPS case, the appellate court granted the administration's motion to stay the district court's preliminary injunction pending appeal.
This case involves President Trump's executive order (EO) titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," which:
directed the U.S. Secretary of the Interior (the "Secretary") to review all "public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties" within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of the Interior and "take action, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to ensure that" they "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."
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum then issued an order directing the NPS to conduct reviews of interpretive materials at the various NPS sites. By early 2026:
the National Park Service had removed or flagged hundreds of interpretive materials from park sites, including materials addressing climate change, slavery, abolition, immigration, labor, women's suffrage, civil rights, and the culture and mistreatment of indigenous groups.
The plaintiff organizations sued the administration in February 2026, contending that the Secretary's order violates the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). In mid-June, Massachusetts District Court Judge Angel Kelley issued a preliminary injunction and stayed the Secretary's order. Not only that, she "ordered the Department to restore and reinstall by July 3, 2026, all interpretive material at the public sites managed by the National Park Service that had been altered, removed, or damaged pursuant to the Secretary's Order."
SEE: New: Federal Court Reverses Trump’s Park Exhibit Removals
The administration appealed and sought a stay of Kelley's order pending that appeal, which the 1st Circuit has now granted. Now, to be clear, the appellate court has not ruled on the merits of the plaintiffs' claims here. Instead, what they found was that the plaintiffs failed to show they themselves had sustained irreparable injury, noting that:
the plaintiffs asserted aesthetic, recreational, and informational harms only to their members, not to themselves. And, although the plaintiffs submitted numerous declarations to support their motion, those declarations alleged specific (rather than general) "aesthetic, recreational, and informational harms" only to one member.
Ultimately, what this means is that the Secretary's order remains in effect, and the Department of the Interior does not have to restore any displays that had been altered pursuant to the order.
Again, this is a procedural win, not a ruling on the merits. Still, a win's a win, and now NPS personnel won't have to spend the America 250 weekend scrambling to comply with the district court's restoration deadline while the appeal proceeds.
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