'Symbols of white supremacy': Judge refuses to end taxpayer funding for Confederate statues

A federal judge sided with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and dismissed a lawsuit seeking to end taxpayer funding for Confederate tributes.

The lawsuit filed by Jacksonville resident Earl Johnson Jr. claimed that using taxpayer money to fund Confederate monuments violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and sought a declaratory judgment against DeSantis and mayor Lenny Curry, reported First Coast News.

"These monuments are symbols of white supremacy ideology," Johnson said. "These monuments were put up during Jim Crow and reconstruction times. This isn't about history."

DeSantis and Curry filed a motion to dismiss the complaint in October, but it was struck down a day later. The judge granted an amended motion to dismiss last month because Johnson had not shown "he has sustained or is in immediate danger of sustaining a direct injury associated with Confederate tributes on public land."

The Republican-dominated state legislature approved a bill that would prevent war memorials, including Confederate tributes, from being moved or recontextualized, and it would require anyone who damages or defaces those memorials to pay back three times the amount it cost to repair them.