Mt Soledad Cross in San Diego: Lawsuits, 2015 Sale, and Legacy

The Mt. Soledad Cross in San Diego is a 29-foot concrete Latin cross standing on Mount Soledad in La Jolla, and for more than a quarter century it was the subject of one of the longest-running Establishment Clause fights in American history. The dispute ended in 2015, when the half-acre of land beneath the cross was sold to a private nonprofit, removing the constitutional problem of a religious symbol on public property. The cross still stands as the centerpiece of the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial, which honors more than 10,000 service members.¹

What Stands on the Hilltop

The cross sits atop a ten-foot circular platform, with concentric terraces radiating outward, brick walkways, and a small lawn leading to a circular drive overlooking the Pacific. Surrounding it are black granite walls added in phases between 2000 and 2012, bearing individually engraved plaques with photographs, service records, and insignias of veterans.² The memorial is at 6905 La Jolla Scenic Drive South and is open daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., with free admission and parking.³

How the Cross Got There

The current concrete cross is the third to stand on the hill. A redwood cross went up in 1913 and was destroyed by vandals in 1923. Its stucco-and-wood replacement was toppled by a windstorm in 1952. Architect Donald Campbell designed the concrete structure that replaced it, and it was dedicated on Easter Sunday 1954 to honor service members who died in the two World Wars and the Korean War. The Mt. Soledad Memorial Association was incorporated the same year.¹

For decades the site was known as the “Mount Soledad Easter Cross” and hosted Easter sunrise services; during World War II, services from the hilltop were broadcast to troops overseas.¹ The name was shortened in the 1980s, and the transformation into a veterans tribute site did not begin until the 1990s. That timing became important in court.

Paulson v. City of San Diego

On May 31, 1989, Philip K. Paulson filed a federal lawsuit against the City of San Diego, arguing that a cross on city-owned parkland violated both the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause and the California Constitution’s No Preference and No Aid to Religion clauses.⁴ Paulson was a Vietnam combat veteran and an atheist who taught at National University in San Diego. He received frequent death threats through the 17 years he spent on the case.⁵

In December 1991, U.S. District Judge Gordon Thompson ruled that the cross on city property violated the California Constitution’s No Preference Clause. He issued a permanent injunction and ordered the city to “disentangle itself” from the issue.⁶ The Ninth Circuit affirmed, rejecting the city’s secular-memorial argument and holding that “a sectarian war memorial carries an inherently religious message.”⁴

Ballot Measures and Failed Land Sales

Facing the injunction, the city tried to sell the land out from under the constitutional problem. In 1992, voters approved Proposition F with 76% support, authorizing the sale of the parkland to the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association. A federal court voided that sale in 1997, finding it was designed to evade Judge Thompson’s order. A second sale, using competitive bidding, was struck down by an 11-judge en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit in 2002; the court ruled the process had been manipulated to favor buyers who would preserve the cross, providing a financial benefit that violated California’s No Aid to Religion Clause.⁶

Voters were asked again. Proposition K in November 2004 proposed a new competitive-bid sale and was rejected. Proposition A in July 2005 asked whether the city should donate the property to the federal government for use as a national memorial.⁷⁸

Congress Takes Over the Land in 2006

With the city facing a court-ordered $5,000 daily fine, Congress intervened. Representative Duncan Hunter of El Cajon introduced H.R. 5683, co-authored with Representative Brian Bilbray and backed by Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. The bill instructed the president to take the property by eminent domain and transfer it to the Department of Defense.⁹ The House passed it 349 to 74 on July 19, 2006, the Senate approved it by unanimous consent on August 1, and President George W. Bush signed it into law on August 14, 2006, as Public Law 109-272.¹⁰ The strategy was to move the case out from under California’s stricter No Preference Clause and put it under the U.S. Constitution alone.

Paulson’s attorney filed a new federal suit to void the transfer.⁹ Paulson died of cancer in October 2006 at age 59.⁵

Trunk v. City of San Diego and the Ninth Circuit

Steve Trunk and the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America carried the case forward, filing separate suits in August 2006 that the district court consolidated.¹¹ The Jewish War Veterans argued the cross sent a particularly exclusionary message in a neighborhood where Jewish residents had been barred by housing covenants until the late 1950s.¹²

In 2008, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns ruled for the government, finding Congress had a secular purpose and that the memorial’s primary effect was “patriotic and nationalistic.” The Ninth Circuit reversed on January 4, 2011, holding that the Latin cross is a “preeminent Christian symbol” and that its “absolute dominance” over the site was not “mitigated by the belated efforts to add less significant secular elements.” The panel noted the site had not functioned as a war memorial until the 1990s, when plaques were added during the litigation, and concluded: “Resurrection of this Cross as a war memorial does not transform it into a secular monument.” It ordered the cross removed from federal land.¹³

The Supreme Court Passes

On June 25, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case, leaving the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in place.¹⁴

The 2015 Sale That Ended the Case

The resolution came from Congress again. The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2015, signed by President Obama in December 2014, directed the Department of Defense to sell the half-acre parcel to the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association.¹⁶ On July 17, 2015, the Association bought the land for $1.4 million in cash.¹⁷

Once the land was private, the Establishment Clause claim fell away; it restricts government action, not private owners. On September 7, 2016, the Ninth Circuit dismissed the case as moot.¹⁸ The sale carried a condition that the parcel remain a veterans memorial in perpetuity.¹⁹

How the Law Around Cross Memorials Has Since Shifted

Three years after the Mt. Soledad case ended, the Supreme Court reshaped the doctrine that had driven it. In American Legion v. American Humanist Association (2019), the Court ruled 7-2 that a 32-foot cross-shaped World War I memorial in Bladensburg, Maryland did not violate the Establishment Clause.²⁰ Justice Alito’s majority opinion established a “strong presumption of constitutionality” for longstanding, religiously expressive monuments and set aside the Lemon v. Kurtzman test that the Ninth Circuit had used against the Mount Soledad cross. The Court reasoned that the passage of time can embed a monument’s meaning in a community’s secular identity, and that removing such symbols could appear “aggressively hostile to religion” rather than neutral.²¹ The Mount Soledad dispute was already over by then, but Bladensburg changed the ground on which similar challenges are now decided.

Visiting the Memorial

The Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial is owned and operated by the Mt. Soledad Memorial Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit active since 1952. It receives no government funding and is sustained by private donations and plaque sponsorships.³ The site features more than 10,000 individual veteran plaques on its black granite walls and hosts regular Saturday ceremonies along with annual Memorial Day and Veterans Day events. The Association also runs student tours and educational programs.²² No active legal disputes involve the site.¹⁹

1
Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial. About
2
The Cultural Landscape Foundation. Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial
3
Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial. Home
4
City of San Diego. City Attorney Report RC-2006-12
5
Los Angeles Times. Philip Paulson
6
ACLU. ACLU San Diego Hails Appeals Court Decision on Sale of Soledad Cross
7
San Diego Union-Tribune. City Can Place Soledad Cross Donation on Ballot
8
City of San Diego. Proposition A, Mount Soledad Natural Park
9
Voice of San Diego. Cross Transferred to Feds, Legal Battle Continues
10
U.S. Congress. H.R. 5683
11
FindLaw. Trunk v. City of San Diego
12
U.S. Department of Justice. Brief for the Federal Respondents in Opposition, Mount Soledad Memorial Association v. Trunk
13
Justia. Trunk v. City of San Diego, Ninth Circuit Opinion
14
ACLU. Mt. Soledad Cross Stays, for a While at Least
16
Fox 5 San Diego. Dept. of Defense Sells Mt. Soledad Memorial
17
Los Angeles Times. Mt. Soledad Cross Land Sold
18
KPBS. Mount Soledad Cross Dispute Ends Quietly in Settlement
19
The American Legion. Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial, La Jolla, California
20
SCOTUSblog. The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
21
Justia. American Legion v. American Humanist Association
22
Candid/GuideStar. Mt. Soledad Memorial Association