By AP/KWMU
St. Louis, MO – A federal judge in St. Louis says the Ku Klux Klan's history of terrorizing blacks is no reason to keep the group from adopting a highway.
The Klan joined the Adopt-A-Highway program and adopted part of Interstate 55 in St. Louis in 2001; protestors responded by tearing down the signs that said "This section of highway adopted by the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan."
MODOT later kicked the group out of the program for not cleaning the road's litter; it then rewrote the rules on who can adopt a highway.
U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry said those new rules, which ban groups that discriminate from adopting a highway, is a violation of free speech rights.
The Klan has tried to take part in the roadside cleanup program since 1994. It allows them to clean up a stretch of highway with posted signs indicating their sponsorship.