A federal judge on Dec. 18 issued a temporary order halting the planned removal of a Confederate monument at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, according to reports.
Work had already begun to remove what’s known as the Confederate Memorial, which was erected in 1914 in honor of soldiers who died fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War. The monument hadn’t yet been dismantled when the order was issued and remains in place on cemetery grounds.
The lawsuit was filed on Dec. 17 by a group calling itself Defend Arlington, The Associated Press reported. The same group sued the U.S. Army and the U.S. Department of Defense in February to halt the memorial’s removal, but a district judge last week tossed the case and allowed the work to proceed in accordance with recommendations from a congressionally mandated naming commission.
The commission, comprised of civilian authorities and retired and current defense officials, was tasked to review the Defense Department’s assets and identify “all names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America.” The Army has renamed nine bases across the nation to comply with the commission’s final report.
In its latest lawsuit, Defend Arlington accused the Army, which maintains the cemetery, of violating federal regulations.
“The removal will desecrate, damage, and likely destroy the Memorial longstanding at ANC as a grave marker and impede the Memorial’s eligibility for listing on the National Register of Historic Places,” the lawsuit states.
U.S. District Judge Rossie Alston, who granted Defend Arlington’s request for a restraining order, said the parties should be prepared to make their case at a hearing scheduled for Dec. 20.
In a footnote, the judge wrote that he “takes very seriously the representations of officers of the Court and should the representations in this case be untrue or exaggerated the Court may take appropriate sanctions.”
The memorial was commissioned in 1898 by President William McKinley, the last U.S. president to have fought under the Union banner in the Civil War. In 1900, Congress allowed for more than 400 Confederate veterans to be reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery in graves forming concentric circles around the memorial in an effort to foster reconciliation and heal the nation’s war wounds.
“In the spirit of fraternity we should share with you in the care of the graves of Confederate soldiers,” President McKinley said in an 1898 speech. “Sectional feeling no longer holds back the love we feel for each other. The old flag again waves over us in peace with new glories.”
Opposition From Lawmakers, Public
The judge’s order came days after a group of four Republican members of Congress sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, asking that he stop the Confederate monument’s removal.The Army’s decision to proceed, the lawmakers argued, violates the Congress’ intent outlined in the 2021 defense policy bill.
“The Reconciliation Monument does not honor nor commemorate the Confederacy; the memorial commemorates reconciliation and national unity. Furthermore, the Naming Commission’s authority explicitly prohibits the desecration of grave sites,” they wrote in the letter.
“Considering the hundreds of gravestones encircling the monument, it would be impossible for these graves to remain untouched if the Department of the Army proceeds with its proposed removal of the monument–both being a clear violation of Congress’ enacted statute and legislative intent.”
In its dismissed suit, Defend Arlington sought to halt the monument’s removal on similar grounds to the Republican lawmakers’ arguments.
“The Memorial represents a symbol of reconciliation aimed at healing a country divided during a brutal sectional war and reconstruction,” the monument’s defenders argued in their prior lawsuit.
