Appeals Court upholds Gaston Co. decision to keep Confederate statue

The North Carolina Court of Appeals has upheld Gaston County’s decision to maintain a Confederate monument near the county courthouse. The unanimous ruling Wednesday rejected arguments against the monument from plaintiffs led by the local NAACP.

The county first erected the monument in 1912 outside the historic county courthouse in downtown Gastonia. County officials moved the monument in 1998 to a location near the entrance to a newer courthouse building.

“Plaintiffs alleged that the monument at issue — ‘a multi-story structure guarding the main entrance to the Gaston County courthouse’ — ‘valorizes an era of slavery, secession, and white supremacy,’” Judge Donna Stroud wrote Wednesday.

In August 2020, as people across the country responded to George Floyd’s killing, Gaston County commissioners voted 6-1 to transfer the monument to the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The plan at the time was to move the monument to private property.

County commissioners reversed course three weeks later after the Sons of Confederate Veterans refused to take ownership of the monument.

The Gaston NAACP led a group of plaintiffs who filed suit three months later to force county officials to remove the monument. “Plaintiffs alleged that the monument’s continued presence violates several provisions of the North Carolina Constitution, including the Open Courts Clause and Equal Protection Clause,” Stroud wrote.

A trial court ruled in favor of the county in January 2024, though the ruling rejected county officials’ argument that North Carolina’s 2023 Monuments Protection Law “wholly prevented removal.”

Appellate judges upheld the trial court’s decision.

The trial judge “ruled that the Monument Protection Law allows removal only under specific statutory conditions — none of which existed here — and that Plaintiffs failed to show any constitutional violation,” Stroud explained.

The appeal specifically targets the trial judge’s ruling about possible violations of the state constitution’s open courts and equal protection clauses.

“Plaintiffs’ open courts claim is foreclosed by North Carolina State Conference of NAACP v. Alamance County,” a 2024 precedent, Stroud wrote. “There, we held that ‘the Open Courts Clause does not prohibit the placement of an object of historical remembrance in or around a courthouse.’ That holding controls here.”

“The equal protection claim fails too,” she added. “Plaintiffs advance two theories: first, that Gaston County’s refusal to relocate the monument violates the state Equal Protection Clause; second, that the monument’s original construction and placement in 1912 also violates that Clause. The first theory fails under Alamance County, which held that a county’s intent in declining to move a monument is ‘irrelevant’ when the Monument Protection Law forbids removal.”

“Plaintiffs’ second theory fails because under our state Equal Protection Clause, a plaintiff must prove both discriminatory intent and ‘a meaningful disparate impact along racial lines,’” Stroud wrote. “Plaintiffs offered survey data showing that Black residents tend to have more negative feelings about Confederate monuments than White residents. They also submitted expert testimony about potential psychological harm from the monument.”

“But they didn’t show that the monument has caused disparate results in judicial outcomes,” the Appeals Court opinion continued. “At the hearing below, Plaintiffs admitted they weren’t claiming that ‘the judges or any [c]ourt officials [we]re acting differently or treating Black residents differently.’ Plaintiffs’ claims rest on negative feelings about historical symbols — feelings that, however deeply felt, cannot support a legal remedy without evidence of ‘a meaningful disparate impact along racial lines’ on how the judicial system operates.  We therefore affirm.”

Judges Jeff Carpenter and April Wood joined Stroud’s decision.

“Appeals Court upholds Gaston Co. decision to keep Confederate statue” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.