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The World War II Memorial

National coalition files suit to stop WWII memorial on Mall

Legal Action • Introduction • Background • Lawsuit Text • Supreme Court News Release • Supreme Court Petition • Justice Dept. Responds (pdf file) • The Coalition Responds

On Oct. 2, 2000, the National Coalition to Save Our Mall joined with WWII Veterans to Save the Mall, the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, and the DC Preservation League in filing suit against the federal agencies responsible for the WWII Memorial fiasco proposed for the heart of the National Mall. The lawsuit named Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior, Bob Stanton of the National Park Service, the Commission of Fine Arts and its Chairman J. Carter Brown, the National Capital Planning Commission and its Chairman Harvey Gantt, and the memorial's sponsor, the American Battle Monuments Commission.

The government has violated its own laws and regulations in an illegal process that began back in 1995. Site selection was made by a few powerful men, without public involvement. No environmental impact statement was ever done for this sensitive and historic part of the National Mall and Lincoln Memorial grounds. Instead, the Park Service issued a finding that the proposed Memorial would have "no significant impact" on the Mall - an astonishing claim given that the Memorial would cordon off this part of the open space and transcendent vistas stretching between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument with a sunken and enclosed plaza topped by 56 stone pillars.

In our complaint we cite violations of the Commemorative Works Act of 1986, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. We concur with Cathryn Slater, Chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, who in her September 5 letter to Secretary Babbitt lambasted the National Park Service for its handling of the memorial process and for shutting out public input, and who recommended that the current design be rejected.

Those of us who testified against the site and design - including Senator Bob Kerrey and other members of Congress in 1997, Richard Moe, President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and numerous professionals, citizens groups, and concerned citizens tried to add a public voice to the process. It became clear, however, that something was seriously wrong. At the so-called public meetings, Commissionersı votes appeared to be already decided before public testimony was given. Repeatedly Chairmen Brown and Gantt refused to consider objections to the Rainbow Pool site, a site selected without public knowledge or input in 1995. The memorial design grew increasingly intrusive on the Mall's open spaces and grand vistas, but the Commissions approved each revision and expressed no concern about the threat to the aesthetic, historic, and cultural resource.

The public outcry is only just beginning. It will grow with revelations in this lawsuit of private shenanigans by an elite group who had no regard for the public or the laws of the land. The overwhelming media opposition - LA Times, USA Today, Atlanta Constitution, The New Yorker and The New Republic, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, to name a few is a harbinger of things to come.

Many people across the nation still know nothing about the memorial. They have contributed money in the belief that it will honor the Mall site and the memory of WWII. When they find out what is proposed for the National Mall, they are shocked and outraged. There is deep national sentiment for protecting the Mallıs integrity while finding another prominent site for the WWII Memorial. The National Coalition to Save Our Mall has received numerous petitions from all across the country, signed by hundreds of ordinary Americans, that state "We do not wish the Rainbow Pool to be destroyed for the proposed World War II Memorial." These are ordinary people speaking. This is the great power of American democracy speaking.

What is at stake is more than the WWII Memorial project. This illegal process represents nothing less than the gutting of the Commemorative Works Act which Congress passed in 1986 to protect the open public spaces and vistas of our nation's capital, and in particular the National Mall. It is an assault on environmental and historic preservation law. Above all, it is a subversion of the open and public process, the publicıs legitimate and legal right to know and be included in decisions affecting our public lands. If the National Mall is not protected by these laws, then no historic resource is.

A lawsuit is not what we anticipated when we tried to participate in the WWII Memorial process. But it now becomes necessary if we are to build a WWII Memorial that truly honors the national effort - military and civilian - in that endeavor.

The process has proved to be an affront to Truth and Justice and Democracy, the very principles for which the WWII generation fought and sacrificed. Those very principles are embodied in the transcendent vistas and national gathering space of the National Mall. Today we are asking the District Court to uphold the law and stop this travesty.

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