The statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was removed with ease Monday from the U.S. Capitol, but the towering statue of the slavery-defending general will remain on Monument Avenue for now, courtesy of a Virginia Supreme Court ruling.

The state’s highest court refused to give Gov. Ralph S. Northam what he had hoped for— the legal right to remove the six-story Lee figure that stands over Richmond.

The Virginia Supreme Court rejected the state’s legal request to dissolve a lower court’s order that blocks the governor from taking down the state-owned, white supremacist image still in place on Monument Avenue.

The court also rejected state Attorney General Mark R. Herring’s companion request for the seven justices to put a rush on hearing a case involving three Monument Avenue property owners who want to keep the statue in place and believe they have a property right that makes their request viable, Mr. Herring’s office stated in response to a Free Press inquiry.

Two months ago, Richmond Circuit Court Judge W. Reilly Marchant dismissed the property owners’ lawsuit against the governor, but barred the state from taking any steps to remove the Lee statue to allow the property owners to appeal to the high court.

Offering no public explanation, the state Supreme Court on Dec. 18 kept Judge Marchant’s injunction against removing the statue intact and decided to allow the case to proceed normally. The court directed its clerk’s office to put the case involving the Lee statue in the court’s inactive file until all the documents and briefs are in place, according to court records. No hearing date has been scheduled.

Legal experts suggested that the court’s action indicates that at least a majority of justices want to consider the merits of the issues regarding the governor’s authority to remove the statue, which were raised by the property owners.

Meanwhile, on Monday, a state-hired company collected the Lee statue from the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol, where it has stood for the past 111 years as one of two statues representing Virginia. The other is a statue of George Washington, the nation’s first president.

Gov. Northam announced on Dec. 16 that a commission he set up recommended as a replacement a new statue of the late Barbara R. Johns, whose teenage protest against deplorable school conditions in Prince Edward County helped bring an end to government-enforced racial segregation.

The GeneralAssembly still must approve the choice of Ms. Johns, which has gained widespread support. The legislature already has endorsed Gov. Northam’s request for $500,000 to sculpt and set up the new statue in the U.S. Capitol.

The selection drew praise from U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner, who, while governor, commissioned a Civil Rights Monument for Richmond’s Capitol Square that prominently features Ms. Johns, who died in 1991.

“Barbara Johns bravely led a protest that defied segregation and challenged the barriers that she and her African-American peers faced,” Sen. Warner stated. “She will represent the best of our Commonwealth in the U.S. Capitol.”

The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus lauded the removal of the Lee statue in a statement Monday that said visitors to the U.S. Capitol have been greeted far too long by “imposing symbols of hate, treason and white supremacy.” By contrast, Ms. Johns “symbolizes tenacity, courage, justice, positive change and the future.”

“It’s time for us to start singing the songs of some of the Virginians who have done great things that have gone unnoticed,” stated Delegate Jeion Ward of Hampton, who sponsored the legislation creating the commission that made the replacement recommendation.

“This is a proud moment for our Commonwealth, and I am humbled to have been a part of it,” Delegate Ward said.

“If we are going to continue building a more inclusive and just Commonwealth and country, we must acknowledge and denounce the darkest parts of our nation’s history, not celebrate them,” the VLBC previously stated.

As a 16-year-old in 1951, Ms. Johns led a student walkout at the Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville to protest the dilapidated and decaying condition of the high school for Black students that starkly contrasted with a new county high school for white students.

The protest brought in NAACP lawyers Oliver W. Hill Sr. and Spottswood W. Robinson III, whose lawsuit challenged the constitutionality of government-imposed segregation of public school students by race.

That Virginia suit became part of the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, that overturned the long- standing “separate-but-equal” doctrine of racial discrimination and ultimately resulted in the dismantling of mandated segregation in all areas.