1. United States
2. Mass.
3. Letter

The Trump administration has taken over full control of what appears on National Park Service websites. For decades, park staff managed their own sites, working closely with local communities and tribal nations to tell the stories of the places they know best. That’s over now. Since February, a group of Trump administration Interior Department officials have been screening every new submission before it can go live, checking that content aligns with Trump’s 2025 directive to frame American history in a more flattering light. Historic sites, battlefields, natural wonders all of it now runs through this “approval process” before the public sees a word. For example, a tribal group submitted an article for the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail website. By the time it was approved and posted, any mention of Thomas Jefferson fathering children with an enslaved young woman had been deleted. This is a gut punch. NPS staff have long been the stewards of their sites’ stories, building relationships with communities and tribes over years to get the history right. That collaborative tradition has been replaced by a centralized vetting process run out of Washington designed not to ensure accuracy, but to ensure compliance. You need to stop this and restore control by the NPS. History should be accurate so we learn from the uncomfortable parts not just the good ones.