The Biden administration wanted to cancel William Penn and tear down his statue in Philadelphia for some unknown woke reason, but they just suddenly reversed course and withdrew their proposal to do this, claiming it didn’t get properly vetted or something.
They announced their plans to cancel William Penn just a few days ago, but outrage ensued on social media and now they are backing down. Of course the governor is taking credit for getting the Biden administration to pull their proposal.
Here’s more from The Hill:
A statue of William Penn at a Philadelphia historical site will remain in the park after the National Park Service withdrew a renovation proposal including its removal.
The service announced Monday it withdrew its draft proposal to rehabilitate Welcome Park, stating the proposal was “released prematurely” and was “not subject to a complete internal agency review.”
“No changes to the William Penn statue are planned,” the service wrote without expanding on what led to the initial proposal to remove the statute.
The park is located on the site of Penn’s former home, known as the Slate Roof House, and is named after the ship — Welcome — that brought Penn to Philadelphia in 1682, according to the service.
Penn founded Pennsylvania after receiving a charter from King Charles II for more than 45,000 square miles of land in 1681.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) appeared to take credit for the reversal of the proposal Monday, stating his team was in contact with the Biden administration throughout Monday to “correct” the decision.
“I’m pleased Welcome Park will remain the rightful home of this William Penn statue — right here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Penn founded,” Shapiro wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Pennsylvania House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler said the proposed removal of the statue was the Biden administration’s attempt “to try and cancel William Penn out of whole cloth is another sad example of the left in this country scraping the bottom of the barrel of wokeism to advance an extreme ideology and a nonsensical view of history.”
This was just another election gimmick where they ended up with egg on their face.