The administration’s claims of power to erase or hide historical accounts “echo Big Brother’s domain in Orwell’s 1984,” ruled Judge Cynthia Rufe.
President’s House site today at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. (National Park Service)
President’s House in High Street, Philadelphia when it was the residence of George Washington. (William L. Breton, artist and lithographer (c.1773–1855) – John Fanning Watson, Annals of Philadelphia, 1830/Wikipedia)
By Jessica Corbett
Common Dreams
A U.S. federal judge has issued an opinion that compares President Donald Trump’s administration removal of displays about slavery from a historical site in Philadelphia to the actions of the propaganda agency in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984.
Judge Cynthia Rufe — appointed to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by former Republican President George W. Bush — began her ruling this week by quoting Orwell’s 1949 critique of totalitarianism:
“All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean, and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place.”
The judge wrote: “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. It does not.”
Judge Cynthia M. Rufe, Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0)
The judge was ruling about the administration removing an exhibit on slavery at the site of the President’s House in Philadelphia, where the first two U.S. presidents live from 1790 to 1800.
“The President’s House is a component of Independence National Historical Park that commemorates the site of the first official presidential residence and the people who lived there, including people enslaved by President George Washington,” she explained.
“On January 22, 2026, the National Park Service (NPS) removed panels, displays, and video exhibits that referenced slavery and information about the individuals enslaved at the President’s House,” wrote the judge.
The removal followed Trump’s March executive order aimed at ensuring “federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums,” are not subjected to what he called “ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history.” The move can be seen as part of Trump’s “war on history” and embrace of authoritarianism.
Relying on the Administrative Procedures Act, Philadelphia sued the National Park Service (N.P.S.) and acting Director Jessica Bowron, as well as the parent agency, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and its secretary, Doug Burgum, over the removal of the slavery exhibits.
“In its argument, the 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. Its claims in this regard echo Big Brother’s domain in Orwell’s 1984,” Judge Rufe wrote in her 40-page opinion.
She cited the dystopian novel’s description of the largest section in the fictional government’s Records Department, which “consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction.”
A 1796 runaway advertisement for Oney Judge, one of nine slaves held by Washington at President’s House in Philadelphia. (The Pennsylvania Gazette, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 24, 1796/Wikipedia)
According to Rufe, “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.”
She wrote:
“An agency, whether the Department of the Interior, N.P.S., 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.”
Rufe found that the federal defendants “completely ignored their legislatively imposed duties,” took actions that “impede the separation of powers instituted by the Constitution,” and “acted in excess of their authority as agencies authorized by Congress within the executive branch.”
“‘The government here … 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….'”
The judge determined that Philadelphia “is likely to prevail on its claims that the removal was arbitrary and capricious,” and “met its burden to establish irreparable harm.”
She concluded that “the balance of harms and the public interest tip in the city’s favor.”
Her preliminary injunction requires the reinstallation of “all panels, displays, and video exhibits that were previously in place,” and bars defendants from “any additions, removals, destruction, or further changes of any kind to the President’s House site.”
Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney flagged the ruling on social media, highlighting the Orwell references. His posts gathered thousands of reposts and responses, including from observers who were alarmed by the administration’s actions and welcomed the judge’s decision.
“Federal judges continue to speak up and speak out. It is amazing to see one quote George Orwell, but it also feels appropriate at a time when we see so many attacks on the rule of law,” said Lawyers Defending American Democracy.
Democratic Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija wrote on Bluesky:
“Proud of this result. The court cited Orwell’s 1984 recognizing that we can’t just erase hard truths from our history. Montgomery County was proud to join Bucks, Chester, and Delaware Counties in filing an amicus brief to support preserving the President’s House slavery exhibits.”
Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.