A US preservation group launched a $10 million legal fund to fight the Trump administration over historic sites
The National Trust for Historic Preservation launched a $10 million legal defense fund this week, citing what it called 'urgent threats' to historic buildings and sites under the Trump administration, and said it would use the money to challenge government decisions in court. The move follows the organization's clashes with the administration over a planned White House ballroom and other projects it argues threaten protected sites, and it arrives as the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture marks its tenth anniversary amid what museum staff describe as sustained political pressure on how it presents American history. Together, the two stories point to a widening confrontation between the administration and the institutions that steward the country's cultural memory, with preservationists increasingly turning to litigation — rather than the negotiation and lobbying that traditionally settled such disputes — as their primary tool for pushing back.
