Some cities have canceled Juneteenth celebrations amid President Donald Trump’s rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
But a Northeastern University law expert says that revoking Juneteenth as a federal holiday is outside the president’s purview.
“Juneteenth is a federally declared holiday,” Jeremy Paul, professor at Northeastern University School of Law. “Holidays are established by Congress and cannot be revoked just by a president.”
Juneteenth is observed on June 19, and is also known as Emancipation Day or Freedom Day.
The holiday celebrates the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States, and it marks the day in 1865 when Union troops reached Galveston Bay, Texas, and declared the state’s last enslaved people to be free under the Emancipation Proclamation.
Although celebrated by the Black community for years, Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021 when former President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.
Trump also pledged to make Juneteenth a federal holiday during the 2020 campaign.
However, cities and states have canceled Juneteenth celebrations and corporate sponsors have withdrawn their support for celebrations, citing a rollback in DEI initiatives and budgets, slashed federal grants and more.
Meanwhile, Trump in May said that he would not recognize Indigenous Peoples Day — also first marked by Biden — in favor of bringing Columbus Day “back from the ashes.”
But Paul notes a legal difference between Indigenous Peoples Day and Juneteenth.
Biden marked Indigenous Peoples Day in a proclamation — not legislation — and that proclamation thus neither established the day as a federal holiday nor removed Columbus Day as a federal holiday.
That being said, only 28 states have recognized Juneteenth as a permanent state holiday, with the remaining states doing so in less formal ways or on a year-to-year basis.
“The federal holiday doesn’t mean that it’s also a state holiday,” Paul says. “And if a city wants to have their city hall open on a federal holiday, they can do that — they almost never do, but it could be done.”
For example, Paul cited Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It became a federal holiday in 1983. New Hampshire didn’t adopt it as a state holiday until 1999.