From Arches to Zion, Utah’s national parks have flagged dozens of interpretive panels and other educational materials for a federal government review. As seen at other parks, removal of those items is on the table.
It’s a response to an executive order from the Trump administration that directs parks to report language that may cast a negative light on America’s history and environment.
The directive coincides with other executive orders to roll back climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. For Olivia Juarez, public land program director with advocacy group GreenLatinos in Salt Lake City, it marks another example of the administration’s push to weaken the national parks.
“They're setting up the park system to fail,” Juarez said. “What's happening here is actually under the broader context of this administration looking to privatize the public trust, to take public lands out of public hands.”
The Washington Post published a leaked dataset of more than 500 items park staff nationwide submitted for federal review. Utah sites flagged 37 pieces, most of them wayside signs and interpretive panels.
The executive order fundamentally misunderstands what historians do, said Danielle Olden, an associate professor of history at the University of Utah, speaking in a personal capacity. That’s especially true when it comes to finding new evidence and asking new questions.
“We're constantly reinterpreting the past, and that is what this order is attacking,” she said. “So, it's not just an attack on ‘divisive ideology’ or ‘DEI.’ It is an attack on the discipline of history itself.”
Signs and brochures at park sites “absolutely do matter” when it comes to educating the public, Olden said. That’s because materials at museums and public lands are the main way many Americans continue to learn about history after leaving the classroom.
Writing exhibits is even more complicated than writing a book because you get fewer words to explain the context for your audience, said Cedar City-based historian Ryan Paul. Selectively erasing pieces of that history would mean offering future generations a version of the past that didn’t exist.
“This nation is a work in progress, and telling that story matters,” Paul said. “It's a disservice to this country to tell that story in a way that doesn't truly reflect who it really is.”
Removing a sign that recognizes how our nation has made mistakes also eliminates the opportunity to explain how the U.S. tried to rectify them, he said.
“These signs, in some ways, aren't necessarily ways to say how bad we've been, but they could also be ways to say, ‘Look how far we have come.’”
The removal of park signs appears to be unpopular. The National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group, commissioned a 2025 national survey of 3,000 adults. It found that 78% of them thought parks should not remove materials that tell facts from American history.
If the Trump administration replaces the flagged items, it could also come at a steep financial cost. One example from the national dataset offers an idea of the price tag. Gulf Islands National Seashore in Florida estimates it would cost $42,234.24 to replace 60 wayside signs that mention the Gulf of Mexico — a water body the Trump administration began calling the Gulf of America in 2025.
“We could be spending that money instead on ecological restoration projects. We could be spending it on providing training,” Juarez said. “So, it would be a terrible shame and waste of taxpayer dollars.”
Cataloging and reporting exhibits has also put an extra burden on park staff, who have already endured mass firings and a government shutdown since early 2025. Rangers value their mission to preserve and share the parks with Americans, Juarez said, and they want to do the right thing, no matter which administration is in power. But the fuzzy language in the executive order has made it tricky.
“Confusion abounds,” Juarez said, “basically draining the time and resources of our even-more-understaffed, over-capacity civil service.”
That uncertainty shows up in some of the comments from Utah park staff in the dataset. Some say certain signs do not appear to violate the executive order but are included out of an abundance of caution. In others, staff ask for guidance on whether references to climate change, invasive species or the Edward Abbey book “Desert Solitaire" comply with the order.
“People don't want to lose their jobs, right? And it's clear that they're struggling with this,” Olden said. “It's because I think a lot of the language in the executive order is vague on purpose.”
The executive order and subsequent implementation order from the Department of the Interior direct parks to report public-facing content that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times)” or “emphasizes matters unrelated to the beauty, abundance, or grandeur” of natural features.
Zion National Park flagged eight items for federal review, the most of Utah’s national parks. They include signs about how people have altered the Virgin River, the results of suppressing wildfires and the threats that native pollinators face. Park staff also included signs that tell visitors about the dangers of flash floods, but they suggested that such safety messages should be allowed.
Arches and Canyonlands submitted seven and six items, respectively. They include signs with information on how mining and grazing have hurt plant ecosystems and the effects of human-caused climate change on the landscape.
One interpretive panel at Arches was flagged because it states that Indigenous peoples lived in the area “before being forced onto reservations.” The park’s website acknowledges that Arches is located on the ancestral homeland of several Native tribes, including the Ute and Paiute.
Arches and Canyonlands also reported signs that tell visitors why they should refrain from vandalizing rock features or walking on fragile biological soil crusts. The removal of such practical messages, Juarez said, would show how the Trump administration’s actions could end up “preventing national park visitors from understanding what they need to do to be good stewards of our national parks.”
Bryce Canyon flagged five items. One highlights how human pollution causes haze that can hurt the park’s air quality. It links fossil fuel emissions, including those from a coal power plant in another state, with impacts on how far visitors can see from the park’s viewpoints. Scientific research has shown that air pollution can travel hundreds of miles.
Other sites, including Capitol Reef National Park and Timpanogos Cave National Monument, said they had nothing to report.
Golden Spike National Historic Park in Box Elder County submitted two items for review, both related to racial discrimination. One highlights how railroads aided the U.S. military in encouraging hunters to kill bison, depriving Native Americans of their primary food source. Park staff noted that this description “aligns with documented history.” The second sign educates visitors about the discrimination Chinese railroad workers faced in the 1800s and links it with racism some Americans experience today.
Olden said simplifying the story of the past hurts our ability to understand the present and create a better future. If someone never learns about the country’s extensive history of racial discrimination, for example, conversations about rectifying modern racism may seem to come out of nowhere or be needlessly divisive.
“We cannot critique our present without those complex histories,” Olden said. “And if we can't critique it, then we can't chart out alternative visions of the future.”
