Pennsylvania Appeals Court Reinstates Challenge to Pittsburgh’s Columbus Statue Removal
The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania has reinstated an Italian heritage group’s challenge to the city of Pittsburgh’s efforts to remove a Christopher Columbus statue from Schenley Park. The Italian Sons and Daughters of America filed suit in October 2020 after the Pittsburgh Art Commission voted to remove the statue, and then-mayor Bill Peduto also recommended its removal. The group argued that the mayor could not override a 1955 city council ordinance that cleared the way for the statue’s installation.
The city argued that the legislation was more akin to a resolution accepting a gift and that no council action to rescind it was needed. Common Pleas Judge John McVay Jr. ruled in 2022 that because the statue is in a city-owned park, it represents government speech and that the group’s claims were therefore barred.
However, the Commonwealth Court said that McVay erred in concluding that the group’s claims “are barred in their entirety.” The court said that the group’s claims of violations of the city’s charter, code, and ordinance were not “irrelevant procedural quibbles.”
The court did reject the group’s challenge to McVay’s refusal to remove himself from the case. Philadelphia attorney George Bochetto, who filed the lawsuit and subsequent appeal on behalf of the group, hailed the ruling and called on the new mayor to “sit down with me to reach a resolution without further costly litigation.”
The Schenley Park statue has been vandalized several times and was wrapped in plastic in 2020. Much of the covering has since worn away or been removed, although the head remains covered.
Disputes over Columbus statues have roiled other cities across the nation, including Philadelphia. In December 2022, a plywood box covering the Columbus statue in Philadelphia was removed by judicial order. The group that fought for the statue’s retention and the removal of the covering filed suit last year alleging that officials conspired to abuse the legal process in trying to remove the statue.
Columbus statues have also been removed in nearby Camden, New Jersey, and Wilmington, Delaware. In Richmond, Virginia, a statue of Columbus was torn down, set on fire, and thrown into a lake. In Columbia, South Carolina, the first U.S. city named for Columbus, a statue of the explorer was removed after it was vandalized several times. Another vandalized statue in Boston was also removed from its pedestal.
