A federal appeals court judge delivered a brief reprieve to the Trump administration Friday in its battle to take down slavery exhibits at the President’s House park site in Philadelphia.
U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman put on hold a lower judge’s order that had demanded the slavery exhibits, taken down in January, be put back up.
But the immediate effect is not clear.
National Park Service employees, rushing to beat the lower court’s 5 p.m. deadline, had been restoring the exhibits Thursday and Friday.
Judge Hardiman’s ruling, while ostensibly putting most of District Judge Cynthia Rufe’s order on hold, also said things should be frozen in place as they were when he issued his new order.
“It is hereby ordered that appellants are to preserve the status quo as to the President’s House as of the entry of this order,” he wrote Friday afternoon.
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That would seem to suggest that the restored panels must be left up — though any that had yet to be put back wouldn’t need to be, for now.
His decision is a temporary band-aid. He ordered a speedy schedule for more briefing.
President’s House preserves the home where George Washington and John Adams lived in the 1790s while the nation’s capital was temporarily in Philadelphia.
It’s a joint operation between the city and the National Park Service.
The park service in January, following an earlier executive order from President Trump, took down some signs and videos detailing the Washington family’s slaves who lived with him.
Philadelphia sued and Judge Rufe, a George W. Bush appointee to the district court, delivered a severe scolding to the administration, comparing the removal of the panels to the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984.”
As to the legal arguments, she said the agreement between Philadelphia and the park service requires consultation before any markers, monuments and memorials are taken down. She said the feds likely broke that, spurring her to issue her order restoring the signs and videos.
Judge Hardiman, a Bush appointee to the circuit court, didn’t opine on his reasoning in his brief order Friday.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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