Heritage Groups Sue Trump Over “Garden of American Heroes"
The National Mall is “not a personal sandbox for each President to renovate however he likes,” preservationists argue.
Six heritage preservation groups in Washington, DC, are suing the Trump administration over its plans to create a sculpture garden devoted to American “exceptionalism” on public land along the Potomac River.
In a lawsuit filed against the Department of the Interior on Monday, June 15, organizations including the National Parks Conservation Association and the Cultural Landscape Foundation asked a federal judge to halt Trump's plan to build a 250-statue “National Garden of American Heroes.”
The president's plan to install the monument in the National Park Service-controlled West Potomac Park, a part of the National Mall and Memorial Parks, was first announced in May. The proposed construction is unlawful, the groups argue, because it violates several congressional restrictions on new developments and other preservation laws.
“Congress has made clear that the National Mall is a ‘substantially completed work of civic art,’” the lawsuit reads, “not a personal sandbox for each President to renovate however he likes.”
In this week's legal filings, the organizations raised concerns that renderings for the project appear to reduce “open grassy areas” and remove recreational sports fields from the public park, which houses the iconic Jefferson Memorial.
Among the violations alleged in the lawsuit is the administration's apparent disregard for regulations governing the creation of new monuments in the nation's capital. Typically, a multi-step review and Congress's approval would be required for such a project, the filings state. Instead of moving through the approved channels, the groups claim the president is accelerating the project consistent with the “administration’s track record of beginning overhauls of historic and civic spaces in the nation’s capital without warning.”
Trump announced his plans to build the bizarre sculpture garden during his first presidential term, but the proposal was overridden when Joe Biden took office. The garden would include a hodgepodge of characters from American history, including Martin Luther King, Hannah Arendt, and Frederick Douglass, as well as controversial figures such as Christopher Columbus and missionary Junípero Serra, who led the colonial Spanish mission system in California. Historians have called the selection of honorees “odd” and “random.”
A spokesperson for the United States Department of the Interior claimed the organizations that sued the agency had track records of supporting Democratic political campaigns. “It is beyond comprehension why anyone would sue over an exhibition that celebrates American greatness by highlighting some of the most pivotal figures in our nation’s history,” the spokesperson told Hyperallergic in a statement.
In his second term, Trump has reportedly diverted funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the National Endowment for the Arts — both of which slashed numerous arts grants in 2025 — to finance his “American Heroes” project. The NEH has offered artists up to $600,000 for winning sculpture designs.
