Judge issues ruling in lawsuit that argues Eastern Kentucky cemetery shouldn’t be moved
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit aimed at blocking the relocation of an old cemetery in Eastern Kentucky.
Opponents of moving the graves from land owned by the Clay County Board of Education offered scant support for their objections, U.S. District Judge Claria Horn Boom said in her decision.
The dispute involves a site called the Hoskins Cemetery, which is on top of a steep hill that overlooks Manchester Elementary School and is near the county high school and athletic facilities, including the football field.
The cemetery, which dates from the early 1890s, covers a third of an acre and has about 80 grave sites. Among them are graves of military veterans, including two from the Civil War, and Native Americans and their descendants, according to supporters.
Some of the graves are marked only with weathered gray rocks, which is common in historic cemeteries in Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia.
School officials said they wanted to move the cemetery because it represents a potential safety risk so near — and overlooking — schools. School board attorney Sharon Allen referred to it as a potential “sniper’s nest.”
Moving the cemetery also will give the school system other options for using the land.
Some descendants of people buried in the cemetery protested moving the graves, arguing it wouldn’t be right to move the remains.
Relocating the cemetery would “disturb the sacred slumber” of Native Americans buried there and interrupt the religious practices of their descendants, according to the lawsuit against moving the graves.
The lawsuit argued that the school board’s plan violated several federal provisions, including a law protecting Native American graves; national historic preservation rules; and the First Amendment provision against government favoring a particular religion.
Boom said that ostensibly, opponents of moving the cemetery sought to imply that the school board’s plan “establishes Protestantism as the official religion, or somehow prefers that religion over their Native American traditions and beliefs.”
However, they offered nothing to support that claim, Boom said.
The judge said opponents of moving the cemetery erred in arguing the school board violated the National Historic Preservation Act requirement to consult with Native American tribes before an action that could affect sites culturally significant to them.
The law applies only to federal agencies, Boom said in her decision.
The school board followed the proper procedure in seeking to move the graves, the decision said.
The judge dismissed all the federal claims in the lawsuit and declined to rule on some claims related to state law.
Opponents of moving the cemetery could file a lawsuit in state court on some of the claims or appeal Boom’s decision to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Their attorney, Stella B. House, said Thursday she had not yet decided whether to appeal the ruling or file a state complaint.
The school board held off on moving the cemetery while the lawsuit was pending.
