Court OKs KKK Highway Adoption

A court ruling that allowed the Ku Klux Klan to participate in the state’s “Adopt-A-Highway” program was upheld by a federal appeals court Friday.

The state transportation department said it initially refused to let the klan adopt a stretch of Interstate 55 in south St. Louis because the klan discriminated against people based on their color, religion and national origin.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court’s ruling that barring the group was discriminatory and unconstitutional.

“The First Amendment protects everyone, even those with viewpoints as thoroughly obnoxious as those of the klan, from viewpoint-based discrimination by the state,” the ruling said. “There are better ways of countering the klan’s repellent philosophy.”

“This is an affirmation of every principle I have been fighting for,” said Robert Herman, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney who represented the KKK. “The state is not in the business of rewarding or punishing people for their views.”

Transportation officials have not decided whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, spokesman Tom Miller said.

Last November, the department reluctantly allowed the klan into the litter-control program based on an October ruling in U.S. District Court that said it would be discriminatory to forbid the group from participating in the program.

The klan has participated for about three months, Miller said.

The signs that mark the highway as having been adopted by the Klan have been vandalized twice and are not currently in place. Miller said they would be returned in about two weeks.