Confederate memorial removal at Arlington Cemetery is paused by federal judge

By Sabrina Souza, CNN

(CNN) — A federal judge on Monday temporarily halted a planned removal of the Confederate Memorial at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia a day after two groups filed a lawsuit.

US District Judge Ronnie D. Alston in Virginia granted a temporary restraining order barring the memorial’s removal after the groups Defend Arlington and Save Southern Heritage Florida filed an emergency motion asking for the pause.

The bronze elements of the statue were due to be removed by Friday, part of a wider removal of Confederate symbols from US military facilities set forth in a Department of Defense directive issued last October, according to previous CNN reporting.

The groups’ motion alleged the Defense Department’s plan to remove the memorial at Arlington violated the National Environmental Policy Act, and that the department failed to take care of the grave sites surrounding the memorial site as the process of removal was underway, Alston’s order says.

“Plaintiffs have made the necessary showing that they are entitled to a temporary restraining order pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(b) to preserve the status quo pending a decision by the Court on the merits of this action,” Alston’s order reads

The Defense Department is temporarily prohibited “from taking any acts to deconstruct, tear down, remove, or alter the object of this case … pending further action of this court,” Alston’s order reads.

A court hearing has been set for Wednesday.

The Army, which operates the cemetery, said on the cemetery’s website the process to prepare for the monument’s removal, which included an environmental assessment, was completed Saturday. The evaluation found removing it “will not have significant environmental impacts,” according to officials.

Though the monument’s bronze elements were to be removed, its granite base and foundation were to stay at the site to avoid disturbing surrounding graves, cemetery officials had said.

According to the cemetery’s website, Confederate remains weren’t allowed to be buried at Arlington until 1900, 35 years after the Civil War ended.

“By 1902, 262 Confederate bodies were interred in a specially designated section, Section 16,” the cemetery said. The total is now more than 400, according to the cemetery website.

According to the cemetery, the statue, which was designed by American sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel and unveiled in 1914, depicts a bronze woman atop a 32-foot-tall pedestal wearing a crown adorned with olive leaves, holding a laurel wreath, a plow stock, and a pruning hook. At her feet, a Biblical inscription reads, “They have beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks,” the cemetery said.

Other figures on the monument include a Black woman depicted as a “Mammy,” carrying an infant of a White officer, and a Black man following his owner to war, according to the cemetery.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin had voiced his disappointment in the removal plans, said his spokeswoman Macaulay Porter, adding the governor planned to relocate it to the New Market Battlefield State Historical Park in the Shenandoah Valley.

The court battle over the proposed change at Arlington National Cemetery comes a year after West Point removed several Robert E. Lee items, which included a portrait and a stone bust of the Confederate general.

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