Group asks U.S. Supreme Court to stop removal of Peace Cross
BLADENSBURG, Md. (AP) — A group has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision that declared unconstitutional a Maryland veteran’s monument fashioned as a 40-foot-tall (12-meter) cross.
The Washington Post reports the American Legion asked the court Monday to prevent the removal or destruction of the monument.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Bladensburg monument unconstitutional last year, saying it “excessively entangles the government in religion.”
The monument was completed in 1925 to honor Maryland’s Prince George’s County soldiers who died in World War I.
Owned by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, it stands on public land and is maintained with taxpayer money.
A group that espouses the separation of church and state, the American Humanist Association, first challenged the monument’s constitutionality in 2014.
Separated mother and child removed from Brown v. Board mural
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The image of an immigrant child clinging to her mother has been removed from a mural near the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic site in Kansas.
The Kansas City Star reports that the image was painted over Monday.
The 130- by 30-foot (40- by 9-meter) mural tells the story of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ended segregated education and faces a former all-black school in Topeka where the lead plaintiff’s child was a student.
Artist bj McBride says she added the mother and child to the mural Friday following reports of the separation of parents and children at the U.S. border. She later decided it was “distracting.”
Sarah Fizell, executive director of the nonprofit ArtsConnect behind the mural, says the image didn’t fit with the mural’s story.
Praying football coach petitions Supreme Court
SEATTLE (AP) — A former Bremerton High School coach who was terminated when he refused to stop praying on the football field is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case.
The Seattle Times reports attorneys on behalf of Joe Kennedy filed a petition Monday asking Supreme Court justices to reverse a lower court decision that sided with the Bremerton School District’s decision to fire the coach in 2015.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Kennedy’s appeal earlier this year that claimed the district infringed on his religious and personal rights.
Attorneys say the question for the justices is whether “public school teachers and coaches retain any First Amendment rights when at work and ‘in the general presence of’ students.”
Kennedy led players in postgame prayers but the district ordered him to stop saying the practice violated the separation of church and state.
U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear Wyoming boundary case
CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a dispute over the Wind River Reservation's boundaries in Wyoming.
The Casper Star-Tribune reports that the decision Monday upholds a ruling last year by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that the city of Riverton was not on the reservation.
The dispute centers on whether a 1905 agreement between the tribes and federal government to allow sale of reservation land to non-Indians actually changed the reservation boundaries.
The state of Wyoming was among those who argued that argued Riverton was off the reservation.
Northern Arapaho Business Council Chairman Roy Brown said in a statement that the tribe is disappointed in the decision but would not give up its fight to protect its land and sovereignty.
