Judge sets deadline for Trump administration to restore slavery displays at President's House
Source: WPVI-TV Philadelphia, PA
Wednesday, February 18, 2026 3:37PM
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A judge says the Trump administration has until 5 p.m. Friday to restore displays about slavery at the President's House site on Philadelphia's Independence Mall.
The displays tell the story of nine people enslaved by George Washington at his former home. In Wednesday's ruling, U.S. Senior Judge Cynthia M. Rufe said the Department of the Interior failed to comply with her original order to restore the exhibit "forthwith."
On Monday, Rufe granted an injunction ordering that the materials be restored while a lawsuit over the removal proceeds, and barring Trump officials from creating new interpretations of the site's history.
Then, on Tuesday, Trump Administration filed a notice of appeal with the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, also based in Philadelphia. The Justice Department insists the administration alone can decide what stories are told at National Park Service properties.
Read more: https://6abc.com/post/judge-sets-deadline-trump-administration-restore-slavery-displays-presidents-house-philadelphia/18617195/
Link to ORDER (PDF) - https://t.co/duuXDD5gP9
I heard this on the radio (KYW) here almost an hour ago (just after 3 pm ET) as a breaking news from their City Hall bureau chief who reported it live on air. I have been fruitlessly searching for someone to "write it up". Channel 6 (ABC/WPVI) here finally did. They are using some of AP's story about the appeal but AP hasn't even updated with the latest about a "deadline" yet.
I had even found a copy of the latest order via a Xitter post by a Lawfare reporter -
Link to tweet
@rparloff
Judge Rufe says govt has failed to comply with her 2/16 order to restore *forthwith* the slavery exhibits to the [George Washington] President's House in Philadelphia. Orders them restored by 5pm Friday. (Govt has appealed, but has not yet moved for a stay.)
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco
= new reply since forum marked as read
in the form of noting that the judge didn't specify any "sanctions" if the deadline wasn't met.
But I think this is just part and parcel of a judicial (and even from my experience and training as a Supervisor before I retired from the feds), set of "escalation" steps, as "higher ups" will smack you down if you "didn't give someone the chance first". So they HAVE to go through this and then increase the formality and severity of the responses accordingly if there is non-compliance or a continuation of the transgression.
IOW, it's "standard practice" (with the hope that you don't have to go "draconian" and in 90% of the cases, that works, but we know this intransigent set of loons like to test their limits 
).
