Pennsylvania school loses Ten Commandments monument fight

A Pennsylvania school district has abandoned its fight to keep a Ten Commandments monument erected in 1956. Under the settlement reached with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the New Kensington-Arnold School District will pay $164,000 in legal fees and move the 6-foot-tall monument within 30 days. The atheist organization filed suit over the monument in 2012 on behalf of a girl whose sister attended Valley High School in New Kensington, about 20 miles northeast of downtown Pittsburgh. A district judge ruled against the girl in 2015, saying she had only minimal contact with the monument. But the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision in August, ruling the girl had standing to sue by “showing direct, unwelcome contact with the allegedly offending object or event.” The Freedom From Religion Foundation won a similar case in 2015 at another Pennsylvania high school, which moved its monument to a neighboring church.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.