The President’s House
PHILADELPHIA – Put it all back, a judge has ordered after the Trump administration removed mentions of slavery from the site of a historic house in Philadelphia where presidents George Washington and John Adams once lived.
Federal judge Cynthia Rufe began her 40-page ruling yesterday by referencing George Orwell’s 1984, rejecting the Trump Department of Interior’s argument it had the authority to present its preferred version of the nation’s history in national parks.
National Park Service employees took down several exhibits at the President’s House in January, clouding the purpose of the site. Washington owned slaves there, and Rufe has ordered the feds to reinstall the materials they took down while the case plays out.
“Restoration of the President’s House does not infringe upon the government’s free speech, nor is the government prevented from conveying whatever message it wants to send by wiping away the history of the greatest Founding Father’s management of persons he held in bondage,” Rufe wrote.
“President Washington’s house would not merit designation as a historic site if he had not commanded the army that won the Revolutionary War, whose presence presiding over the Constitutional Convention graced it with the gravitas and spirit necessary to the creation of our government’s foundational document, and his restraint and modesty radiated strength and wisdom that defines the ideal chief executive to this day.
“The government can convey a different message without restraint elsewhere if it so pleases, but it cannot do so to the President's House until it follows the law and consults with the City.”
President Trump’s March executive order told the Department of the Interior to make sure national parks do not “contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times).”
But that contrasts with the mission of the President’s House. Washington and Adams once lived at a house on the site, and Philadelphia and the federal government agreed in 2006 to design a somewhat-restored version that tells the stories of those who were enslaved there under Washington.
Admission is free to the house, located on the corner of 6th and Market streets. It is designated as a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site and informs the public of slaves like Oney Judge, who escaped the house after Martha Washington told her she would be given to Washington’s granddaughter as a wedding gift.
Philadelphia, it says, has an equal right to the design of the house and has spent $3.5 million on it. The lawsuit claims the federal government violated the Administrative Procedures Act in making a final agency decision that is arbitrary and capricious.
Gov. Josh Shapiro joined Philadelphia’s cause, as did Democrat state senators Nikil Saval, Vincent Hughes, Christine Tartaglione, Anthony Williams, Art Haywood and Sharif Street. The sudden loss of history is causing harm and anxiety to their constituents, they say.
Rufe quoted Orwell’s dystopian novel – “All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary” – before granting Philadelphia its desired injunction.
“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,” Rufe began.
“It does not.”
The federal government argues the case was filed in the wrong court as it concerns contract issues. Those are typically heard in the Court of Federal Claims.
The decision was not a final agency decision that could be challenged under the Administrative Procedures Act, the feds say. And there is no “irreparable harm,” because the exhibits are in storage and can be re-displayed later, they argued.
“But this is fundamentally a question of Government speech,” the federal government says.
“The federal government ‘has the right to speak for itself’ and ‘to select the view it wants to express.’”
