A Presidents' Day lesson from Philadelphia

“Each person who visits the President’s House and does not learn of the realities of founding-era slavery receives a false account of this country’s history,“ Judge Cynthia Rufe wrote.

On Presidents’ Day 2026, a 77-year-old federal judge in Philadelphia issued a ruling that blocks the Trump administration’s efforts to take down or otherwise excise information from Independence National Historical Park relating to George Washington’s ownership of slaves.

In an opinion that repeatedly compared the Trump administration’s actions to George Orwell’s work, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe focused Monday on a key point on this day devoted to the memory of America’s presidents: The truth matters.

It was a powerfully direct opinion:

The City of Philadelphia sued over the January removals, and Rufe, a George W. Bush appointee who has served on the federal bench since 2002, granted the city’s request for a preliminary injunction on Presidents’ Day.

“[T]he government claims it alone has the power to erase, alter, remove and hide historical accounts on taxpayer and local government-funded monuments within its control,” wrote in her 40-page opinion.

After quoting from Orwell’s 1984 and its description of the Records Department — a place where books “were recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued without any admission that any alteration had been made“ — Rufe wrote:

The government here likewise asserts truth is no longer self-evident, but rather the property of the elected chief magistrate and his appointees and delegees, at his whim to be scraped clean, hidden, or overwritten. And why? Solely because, as Defendants state, it has the power. …

An agency, whether the Department of the Interior, NPS, or any other agency, cannot arbitrarily decide what is true, based on its own whims or the whims of the new leadership, regardless of the evidence before it.

Because of that, Rufe continued, the city was likely to succeed in showing that the Trump administration’s actions were arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.

Rufe also concluded that the city was likely to succeed in its argument that the Trump administration’s actions were ultra vires — outside of their legal authority. Citing laws passed of the decades and and the long set of agreements between the city and the federal government relating to Independence National Historical Park, Rufe wrote of the Trump administration:

They have disregarded statutory authority, compelled by Congress, by taking unilateral action without seeking agreement from the City of Philadelphia. An agency, part of the Executive branch, is not entitled to act solely as it wishes. Rather, it is the Legislative branch which authorizes agency action, and the Executive branch must comply with that direction.

In siding with the city on this front, Rufe found that the Trump administration’s actions “impede the separation of powers instituted by the Constitution.”

Rufe ordered that the terms of her preliminary injunction — which included several specific elements aimed at avoiding evasion — “must be followed immediately, that is FORTHWITH.“

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Rufe did not, however, just issue a ruling.

The federal judge, who was born in Philadelphia in the aftermath of World War II, also provided a clear and desperately needed history lesson for the Trump administration — and America — this Presidents’ Day.

Rufe then detailed, at length, the mass of agreements, funding, and actions taken — including by Congress — to set up the park and then bring the President’s House into the park’s coverage.

It was not subtle, because there was no ambiguity. As Rufe noted, “On December 15, 2010, the City and NPS jointly issued a press release announcing the opening of the ‘President’s House: Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation.’“

The mutual understanding continued into the first Trump administration, when the park’s “Foundation Document” was issued:

Detailing the relevant portions of the document, Rufe wrote:

Independence National Historical Park’s Foundation Document describes the President’s House as “where George Washington and John Adams and their households lived and worked during their terms as the first and second presidents of the United States . . . [and] is interpreted by the park, especially in the paradox of the Washingtons bringing their enslaved people to work and live there.” NPS specifically identifies this “Paradox of Freedom and Slavery” as crucially significant to Independence National Historical Park.

In describing the “fundamental” archeological resources of the park, NPS describes archeological investigations at the President’s House site “which revealed physical connections to the enslaved in President George Washington’s household.

She also noted that — relevant to the case — the document “identifies ‘Pioneering Partnerships and Collaboration’ as a ‘fundamental value’ of the park, noting ‘[t]he dynamic role of partnerships at the park is best illustrated by Independence National Historical Park’s close working relationship with the City of Philadelphia.”

Finally, she explained that even more recently the President’s House was “designated … as a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site pursuant to the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act“ because “it was the location where Oney Judge escaped to freedom.“

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Despite all of this, Trump issued an executive order in March 2025, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,“ which the Trump administration argued justified the information’s removal.

Of that, Rufe wroe:

Instead, she wrote, “It is not disputed that President Washington owned slaves.“

Contrary to the Trump administration’s actions, “[t]he President’s House represents the City ‘fulfilling an obligation to tell the truth—the whole, complicated truth,” Rufe wrote, citing and quoting from an amici curaie brief submitted by two local groups, Avenging the Ancestors Coalition and the Black Journey walking tour. “As amici ATAC and the Black Journey contend, that abrupt elimination of ‘historically significant educational material’ is like ‘pulling pages out of a history book with a razor.’“

As Rufe put it this Presidents’ Day, “Each person who visits the President’s House and does not learn of the realities of founding-era slavery receives a false account of this country’s history.“