Judge rules Confederate memorial in Arlington Cemetery can be removed

A federal judge in Virginia ruled Tuesday that the process to remove the Confederate memorial in the Arlington Cemetery may proceed — one day after ordering the work to temporarily stop.

U.S. District Court Judge Rossie Alston of the Eastern District of Virginia rejected the arguments brought by the plaintiff, Defend Arlington, which argued the Department of Defense did not abide by a certain environmental law and was disturbing the gravesites in removing the statue.

“As Plaintiffs make clear, they challenge ‘the removal of the Memorial’ because that is what frustrates their purposes — not the decisions regarding how the Memorial is removed,” Alston wrote in the opinion, after hearing arguments in court earlier that day.

In denying the preliminary injunction, Alston also ruled the plaintiffs failed to make clear how it was in the public interest to leave the memorial in place and failed to prove that plaintiffs were “likely to suffer irreparable harm.”

The judge also noted the significance of the removal of the memorial — which has been through several hurdles in court battles.

“This case essentially attempts to place this Court at the center of a great debate between individuals extolling the virtues, romanticism and history of the Old South and equally passionate individuals, with government endorsement, who believe that art accentuating what they believe is a harsh depiction of a time when a certain race of people were enslaved and treated like property is not deserving of a memorial at a place of refuge, honor and national recognition,” the opinion read.

“To be sure, this Court’s disposition does not have to resolve this great debate but rather is decided on the relevant case law, statutory law and administrative direction which governs this Court’s decision,” Alston continued.

Alston noted that he initially halted the removal, largely over plaintiffs’ stated concern that there was harm done to the nearby gravesites. Alston said, however, he visited the cemetery and saw this was not the case — there was great care taken to preserve the sanctity of the gravesites.

“In contrast to Plaintiffs’ claims that the imminent removal is damaging the gravesites, an allegation that concerned the Court, Defendants make clear that the process for removal has ‘provided for the utmost protection of burial sites, grave markers, and landscaping using the same protective techniques that the Army requires in its usual ANC burial operations,’” he wrote, noting the evidence provided suggested the plaintiffs’ claims were “misinformed or misleading.”

Alston noted, too, the case was similar to one already litigated in Washington.

The decision comes after a Congress-mandated Naming Commission published a final report suggesting the monument in question be removed, saying it “offers a nostalgic, mythologized version of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.”

The memorial depicts a Black woman holding the baby of a Confederate officer and an enslaved man accompanying his enslaver into battle. It was commissioned in 1914 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and it includes a Latin phrase praising lost causes under the words, “To our dead heroes,” according to The Washington Post.