The government announced the decision in court filings, agreeing to end a lawsuit brought by LGBT organizations and historic preservation groups seeking to halt the removal of the flag. The agreement still requires approval from a judge.
The Department of the Interior and the National Park Service "have confirmed their intention to keep the rainbow flag flying at Stonewall," government and plaintiffs' attorneys stated in a joint court filing. The flag will not be taken down except for "maintenance or other practical reasons," the document says.
Under the agreement, within seven days, the National Park Service will fly three flags on the flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan. The rainbow flag will be between the United States flag and the National Park Service flag. All flags will be three feet by five feet (0.9 meters by 1.5 meters).
"We fought the Trump administration and we won," said Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat who helped organize a protest installation of a Pride flag at the monument after the officially sanctioned government flag was removed.
"We in the LGBTQ community celebrate this legal retreat by the cowardly Trump administration in their contemptuous attempt to erase queer people from American history at Stonewall, the birthplace of the global LGBTQ human rights movement," said Hoylman-Sigal, who is the first openly gay politician elected to his position.
The Pride flag became a focal point in debates about President Donald Trump's relationship to Stonewall, the first national monument to commemorate LGBT history, as well as to other historic sites.
After a multi-year campaign by activists calling for the LGBT community flag to fly daily within the National Park Service-managed site, it was officially installed in 2022, during the tenure of Democratic President Joe Biden.
At that time, National Park Service officials in New York described the flag installation as a sign of the government's commitment to "showcasing the complex and diverse histories of all Americans."
However, in February, the National Park Service removed the flag, which the agency justified as aligning with federal flag display guidelines. A January 21 National Park Service memorandum largely restricts the agency to flying the U.S. flag, the Department of the Interior flag, and the POW/MIA flag, with exceptions that include providing "historical context."
The National Park Service insisted the monument "remains dedicated to preserving and interpreting the history and significance of this site" through various exhibits and programs. But LGBTQ+ activists viewed the flag removal as a targeted insult intended to diminish a site wholly dedicated to their struggle for rights and visibility.
Activists and some New York Democratic officials soon appeared with another rainbow flag and, after tense moments where it seemed it would be placed on a separate, lower flagpole, they raised it alongside the U.S. flag installed by the National Park Service.
Democratic President Barack Obama established the Stonewall National Monument in 2016. The monument is focused on a small park across from the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar where a police raid in 1969 sparked a rebellion and helped launch the modern LGBT civil rights movement.