Judge says removal of Confederate statue at Arlington can proceed

A day after halting work to remove the Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, a federal judge in Virginia on Tuesday said he would allow the removal to proceed.

On Tuesday evening, Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. of the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia ruled against a request from a group called Defend Arlington that the memorial remain undisturbed.

In an opinion denying a preliminary injunction, Alston wrote that the “case essentially attempts to place this Court at the center of a great debate” between the Confederacy’s detractors and defenders. He found that the group that had sought to stop the removal, Defend Arlington, had not shown it was in the public interest to leave the memorial in place, nor had it shown that adjacent graves were being disturbed by the activity.

The ruling was the latest turn in a long effort to dispense with the divisive statue, which the Army had slated for removal this week.

The memorial, depicting a Black woman holding the baby of a White Confederate officer and an enslaved man accompanying his enslaver into battle, was commissioned in 1914 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. “To our dead heroes,” the monument reads above a Latin saying that praises lost causes.

Last year, the Pentagon directed that the monument be dismantled and its bronze figures removed following the recommendation of a Naming Commission established by Congress to review military facilities celebrating the Confederacy. Defend Arlington unsuccessfully sued in D.C. District Court earlier this year to halt removal of the memorial.

On Sunday, the same group sought another order from the Eastern District of Virginia after equipment was moved into place and the memorial area was blocked off in preparation for work scheduled Monday. Alston issued a temporary restraining order Monday, citing Defend Arlington’s allegation that graves were being disturbed.

At a hearing Tuesday, Alston said he visited the site and checked on whether any freshly dug soil or tire tracks marked the area where people were buried. He observed a crane on a roadway near the monument but away from the grass, he said. Alston also said he noticed “protective devices” placed above the nearby graves to shield them.

“I saw nothing to suggest anything was being compromised at all,” Alston said during the hearing. “I saw great respect.”

Attorneys representing Defend Arlington disagreed. Karen C. Bennett said the “respect” that Alston witnessed was inconsistent with what descendants of those interred saw.

Bennett described machinery encroaching on one grave and gravestones being temporarily removed. She also cited the potential for vibrations and moisture to disturb neighboring graves, saying the Defense Department shouldn’t have the power to remove the monument.

“The government does not have the authority,” she said.

Alston rebuffed her.

“I hope you would understand that the illustrations on that memorial may be difficult and hurtful to some people,” Alston said. “We should not be celebrating slavery - that’s what some people believe.”

Alston also noted that Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) announced that the monument would be relocated to another site in Virginia. Defend Arlington said that wasn’t enough.

“Our belief is that its removal from Arlington will destroy it,” Bennett said.

Government attorneys, meanwhile, argued that the case had already been decided - by the litigation earlier this year in the District.

“The alignment of the parties in this case is essentially the same,” said Gregory M. Cumming, an attorney representing the government.

In a statement issued after the ruling Tuesday evening, cemetery spokeswoman Kerry Meeker said the removal would proceed.

“In accordance with this evening’s court ruling, the Army will resume the deliberate process of removing the Confederate Memorial from Arlington National Cemetery immediately,” Meeker wrote. “While the work is performed, surrounding graves, headstones and the landscape will be carefully protected by a dedicated team, preserving the sanctity of all those laid to rest in Section 16.”

Attorneys for Defend Arlington did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the ruling.

The hearing also came as Republican legislators in Virginia targeted the contractors involved in the work. Three Republican state senators wrote to Youngkin on Monday demanding that he bar any Virginia companies connected to the Arlington monument’s removal from doing business with the state.

“While these businesses may be able to contract with the federal government to tear down historic monuments to our country and which are Virginia antiquities, the Commonwealth should not be party to contracts with such enterprises,” wrote Sen.-elect Glen Sturtevant, a former senator who will start a new term in January representing a Richmond-area district.

His letter was co-signed by Sen.-elect John McGuire, a former delegate recently elected to a rural, central Virginia Senate district, and Sen. Frank Ruff (R-Mecklenburg), who recently announced his retirement for health reasons.

Youngkin’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the letter.

Devon Henry, whose Team Henry Enterprises is overseeing the Arlington work and has handled the removal of nearly two dozen Confederate monuments in Richmond and elsewhere, replied on X, formerly Twitter, that Sturtevant’s message was “extremely distasteful yet not surprising.”

Henry, a Black contractor who has faced death threats since taking on statue removals beginning in 2020, was appointed by Democratic former governors Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam to the board of visitors at Norfolk State University and now serves as rector.

“Hey @GlenSturtevant,” Henry wrote, “how would you feel if you found out that the contractor is also a VA GUBERNATORIAL APPOINTEE??? Would you request he be removed from serving the Commonwealth?”

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Alex Horton contributed to this report.