Removal Of Arlington Cemetery Confederate Monument Can Resume: Judge

ARLINGTON, VA — A day after temporarily halting the removal of the Confederate Monument from Arlington National Cemetery, a federal judge said cemetery officials can remove the century-old memorial, according to multiple reports.

On Tuesday, Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. ruled against a request from a group called Defend Arlington after it sought a restraining order and requested the memorial remain undisturbed, the Washington Post reported.

Alston issued a restraining order the day before temporarily prohibiting the monument's removal after the memorial's supporters contacted him. According to an Associated Press, the supporters claimed gravesites adjacent to the memorial were being desecrated as contractors started work to remove the monument.

Alston said he toured the site Tuesday and observed contractors treating it respectfully, according to the AP's report.

"I saw no desecration of any graves," Alston said. "The grass wasn't even disturbed."

In an opinion denying Defend Arlington's request, 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, according to the Post's report. He also said the group had not shown that leaving the memorial was in the public's best interest.

Due to a federal mandate requiring all Confederate memorials to be removed or renamed, officials announced plans in March to remove the 110-year-old statue from Section 16 of the cemetery.

Unveiled in 1914, the Confederate Memorial was designed by American sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Confederate veteran and graduate of Virginia Military Institute. Upon his death, Ezekiel was buried near the statue.

The monument features 32 figures depicting mythical gods alongside Confederate soldiers and civilians. Two figures are Black, depicting an enslaved woman holding the infant of a white officer and an enslaved man following his owner to war.

"The elaborately designed monument offers a nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery," the cemetery's website states.

The process of removing the memorial began after a Congressional committee directed the Department of Defense to remove or rename any items from federal-owned land depicting any person who voluntarily served the Confederacy. The Confederate Monument at Arlington National Cemetery was among those items, officials said.

The secretary of defense agreed with the committee's recommendations, and the directive became law in December 2022.

Work to remove the memorial began Monday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.