National parks ordered to remove items promoting DEI from gift shops

The Trump administration has ordered the National Park Service to pull any merchandise related to diversity, equity and inclusion from its gift shops, intensifying the federal government’s crackdown on DEI and efforts to reshape how American history is told at national parks.

The Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service, said in a memo last month that all national parks must review their retail items and remove by Dec. 19 any that promote DEI or gender expression. The memo did not provide any examples, leaving the order open to interpretation.

The memo, by Jessica Bowron, the National Park Service’s acting director, was obtained by the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group, and reviewed by The New York Times.

The Interior Department said in a statement Friday that the review of retail items would “ensure our gift shops remain neutral spaces that serve all visitors” and “do not promote specific viewpoints.” The department did not respond to questions about what kinds of items it expected parks to remove or what merchandise parks had flagged as unacceptable, if any.

The Trump administration has used the National Park Service to promote its broader effort of telling a more positive version of American history and deemphasizing Black history, ordering the removal of anything that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living,” including some materials related to slavery and Native Americans. The National Park Service will also cut Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, two holidays honoring Black history, from its list of free entrance days next year.

Alan Spears, senior director for cultural resources at the National Parks Conservation Association, called the order a “sham review of gift shop materials” and part of “the administration’s deeply troubling pattern of silencing science and hiding history in our parks.”

In a statement, Spears said that the association opposed the move because “we, like the majority of Americans, support telling the full American story at our parks.” He added, “That means acknowledging hard truths about slavery, climate change and other topics that challenge us as a nation.”

Spears said that the Interior Department had not provided any guidance on how to conduct the merchandise review.

President Donald Trump’s approach to public lands has also been a point of contention among some environmentalists, members of Congress and local businesses that offer guided tours of parks.

Starting Jan. 1, foreign tourists will have to pay a $100 surcharge to visit the country’s most popular national parks. That’s three to five times the typical entry fee for U.S. residents. On Wednesday, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit challenging the National Park Service’s plan to emblazon Trump’s face on some annual passes to national parks.

Jill Savitt, the chief executive of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, said the civil rights movement and the end of slavery were moments that “make America great” and were essential to telling the full truth of American history.

“When you ban certain kinds of concepts or ideas, you’re not allowing democracy to happen,” she said in an interview. “You’re not allowing that exchange that promotes conversation. You’re saying this is a one-sided conversation.”