Trump administration doesn't need to restore more President's House exhibits for now, appeals court says

Abraham Gutman and Fallon Roth, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Feb 20, 2026

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PHILADELPHIA — President Donald Trump’s administration won its first court victory in the President’s House case Friday afternoon, when a federal appeals judge paused the injunction ordering the restoration of the slavery exhibits to the site.

Third Circuit Judge Thomas M. Hardiman, a George W. Bush appointee, overruled a district judge’s order just an hour before the government’s deadline to comply with the injunction.

The National Park Service does not need to restore the exhibits for the duration of the appeal, the order said, but is enjoined from damaging the exhibits and required to take “all necessary steps” to ensure they are not harmed.

The order further prohibits the federal government from making any other changes to the site, including setting up replacement exhibits, which the Department of Interior said would have been installed “in the coming days” if not for the injunction.

“(The Department of Interior and National Park Service) are to preserve the status quo as to the President’s House as of the entry of this order,” Hardiman wrote.

The order is not accompanied by an opinion or memorandum explaining which of the government’s arguments Hardiman found compelling.

Hardiman’s ruling landed an hour before the deadline District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe set for the administration to restore the site to its condition before the Jan. 22 abrupt removal of the exhibits.

Park Service staff began reinstalling exhibits Thursday.

In a legal filing Friday, U.S. attorneys said National Park Service staff had begun planning to reinstall the exhibits once they received the Feb. 16 order to restore the site.

On Thursday, 16 of 17 glass panels were reinstalled, with the remaining one needing repairs. Before the Third Circuit order, National Park Service employees on Friday restored panels around the site’s glass-enclosed archaeological dig, the wayside panel identifying the site, and four functioning video monitors, the federal government said.

The federal government also had not reinstalled 13 metal panels, but was in the process of doing so before the stay, according to the filing.

The city declined to comment on Hardiman’s order. The National Park Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The government argued to the Third Circuit that Rufe misunderstood the difference between the laws and agreements that govern the 55-acre Independence Hall National Historic Park and the stricter rules regarding Independence Hall National Historic Site, the city-owned block between Chestnut and Walnut Streets.

The President’s House, on the corner of Sixth and Market Streets, sits on federal land and the law “imposes no restriction on the government’s removal of the President’s House exhibit,” the filing said.

The city failed to demonstrate harm from the removal of the exhibits, the administration argued, because it has other avenues to promote the history of slavery in the President’s House.

But an injunction forcing the restoration of the exhibits violates the federal government’s free-speech rights, the stay request argued.

“It requires the display and operation of expressive exhibits — at a marquee national historic site in the run-up to the nation’s 250th anniversary — when the government has chosen not to display those exhibits,” the court filing said.

The city responded to the request in a letter in which it expressed confusion about what the administration was asking for. After all, the government already began restoring the exhibits.

“It is not clear whether the United States is asking the court for permission to re-remove the panels that were just reinstalled yesterday, or whether they are asking to be relieved of the duty to reinstall the remaining panels, or whether they are asking for more time to restore the remaining panels because today’s deadline is not feasible,” the city’s letter said.

Either way, the city reiterated its opposition to a stay.

Philadelphia’s lawsuit was the first in the nation challenging the removal of exhibits from national parks in accordance with Trump’s March executive order, which instructed the Interior Department to remove any content or displays that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.”

Advocates celebrated the return of the exhibits commemorating the nine enslaved people who lived in George Washington’s house in a Thursday afternoon rally.

The site will see no further changes for now. Hardiman placed the injunction appeal on an expedited track. With the current deadlines set by the judge, a ruling on the injunction is unlikely before May.