Failure to Extend Extracurricular Opportunities to Parochial School Students Violates Free Exercise In Religious Rights Foundation of Pa. v. State College Area Sch. Dist., No..
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RICHMOND (WINA) – The state Supreme Court unanimously upheld Charlottesville City Council’s 2017 vote to remove the downtown Confederate statues…. saying Judge Richard Moore misread a 1997 state law he had said protected them. This is a resounding ruling not just because it allows the city to remove the Lee and Jackson statues today, if it wants to… but also renders the coverings that were ordered removed in 2018 legal, and overturns Judge Moore’s ruling that the city had to pay costs and attorneys’ fees of more than $365,000 to the plaintiffs.
The high court unanimously ruled that state statute protecting war memorials the General Assembly passed in 1997 does not apply to those constructed before that year. The Court acknowledged and respects Judge Moore’s rulings, but said he read beyond the plain language. The opinion, written by Justice Bernard Goodwyn, said Judge Moore made his rulings in good faith and with full acknowledgement the Supreme Court wou
Sandy Hausman reports
In this 2018 file photo, a visitor eats lunch in front of a statue of Robert E. Lee that is surrounded by fencing and a No Trespassing sign in Charlottesville.
Credit AP Photo/Steve Helber
The court found that the law, which was passed by the General Assembly in 1997, was not retroactive to monuments or statues erected before that date. The statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were erected in Charlottesville in the 1920 s.
In 2017, the city announced plans to remove them, setting off a deadly rally by white supremacists and years of legal challenges. According to the court s ruling, the city had the power to remove the statues all along. .The Statues were erected long before there was a statute which both authorized a city’s erection of a war memorial or monument and regulated the disturbance of or interference with that war memorial or monument, Justice Bernard Goodwyn wrote in the opinion.
Virginia Supreme Court: Charlottesville allowed to remove Confederate statues
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The Supreme Court of Virginia ruled Thursday that a state law does not prohibit removal of this statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in downtown Charlottesville. File Photo by Alex Edelman/UPI | License Photo
April 1 (UPI) The Virginia Supreme Court ruled Thursday that state law does not ban Charlottesville from removing Confederate statues at the hub of deadly neo-Nazi rally in 2017.
At issue, was the Confederate statues of Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson, which white nationalists rallied to protect in an August 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Va. One White supremacist plowed his car into the crowd and killed counter-protester Heather Heyer, 32, and injured 19 others.