President Donald Trump’s administration has directed national parks to immediately remove items from their gift shops that are perceived as promoting programs including diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
The Interior Department wrote in a memo last month that all National Park Service (NPS) units had until December 19 to carry out a review of all retail items on sale and remove any that are deemed to run afoul of Trump’s executive orders.
Newsweek contacted the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service for comment by email and via its website outside of regular working hours.
Why It Matters
The directive to remove merchandise deemed non-neutral has sparked concerns surrounding censorship, and whether such measures undermine the NPS’ ability to educate the public on topics including civil rights.
The move comes amid broader efforts by the Trump administration to roll back DEI initiatives in both public and private institutions.
What To Know
The memo – which was shared by the nonpartisan advocacy group National Parks Conservation Association – said that the directive was issued to ensure that all NPS units were complying with the Interior Department’s order SO 3416, which was introduced to fulfill Trump’s executive orders.
In January, Trump signed Executive Order 14151, titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Program and Preferencing.” He also signed Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
The memo said that order SO 3416 was “intended to halt all actions related to ‘illegal and immoral discrimination’ programs, including DEI, DEIA, and EJ (collectively, ‘equity-related’) mandates, policies, preferences and activities in the Department.”
The memo did not specify the items that could no longer be sold, but said that “items identified as noncompliant with this order must be removed from sale immediately.”
What People Are Saying
The Interior Department said in a statement, according to The Associated Press: “Our goal is to keep National Parks focused on their core mission: preserving natural and cultural resources for the benefit of all Americans.” It added that it wanted to ensure that gift shops “do not promote specific viewpoints.”
The Interior Department said in the memo: “All NPS units must conduct a review of past product review approvals, merchandise plans, or other documentation when considering compliance with the SO 3416 criteria and make necessary adjustments as quickly as possible.”
Alan Spears, the senior director for cultural resources at the National Parks Conservation Association, said: “Banning history books from park stores and cracking down on park T-shirts and key chains is not what national park visitors want from their Park Service. Going after gift shops is just one part of the administration’s deeply troubling pattern of silencing science and hiding history in our parks. It’s a bad idea that has proven deeply unpopular with the millions of people who come to our national parks to learn about America’s natural wonders and unique diverse history.
“There is something for all of us at our parks, from the Civil War buffs to the citizen scientists to the students learning about the Civil Rights movement, and everyone in between. We trust expert national park rangers to help us understand these complex topics. But now, after mass firings that have left the Park Service down a quarter of their staff, the administration is forcing these professionals to prioritize a sham review of gift shop materials over doing their jobs for the American people. There has been no transparency or guidance on this review, once again undermining Park Service staff. Park Service staff should be managing parks, not censorship campaigns.”
He added: “The National Parks Conservation Association opposes this latest move from the administration because we, like the majority of Americans, support telling the full American story at our parks. That means acknowledging hard truths about slavery, climate change, and other topics that challenge us as a nation. From the gift shop to the trailhead, we support the Park Service’s longstanding efforts to bring us closer together as Americans.”
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