COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a state law preventing anyone from moving a Confederate monument or changing the historical name of a street or building without the Legislature's permission is legal.

But in the same ruling, the justices struck down a requirement that two-thirds of the General Assembly must approve a move or name change.

The unanimous decision keeps intact South Carolina's Heritage Act, which has stopped colleges and local governments from removing statues honoring Civil War soldiers or segregationists even as other areas of the South took them down after protests sparked by the killing of African American George Floyd last year by white police officers in Minnesota.

The law was passed in 2000 as part of a compromise to remove the Confederate flag from atop the South Carolina Statehouse dome. The rebel banner was moved to a pole on the capitol lawn, where it flew until 2015 when lawmakers removed it after nine Black church members were killed in a racist massacre at a Charleston church.

One of the people who sued lawmakers over the Heritage Act is the widow of state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, the pastor at Emanuel AME church in Charleston who died in the attack.

The law specifically protects monuments from 10 wars — from the Revolutionary War to the Persian Gulf War. It also protects monuments honoring African Americans and Native Americans as well as a catchall phrase of “any historic figure or historic event.”