From New Orleans to Atlanta to New York, local officials and their constituents—not judges—are deciding what to do with Confederate monuments. But when a court was pulled into a dispute between Vanderbilt University and United Daughters of the Confederacy of Tennessee over the name of a campus building, the result was a curious mix.

The state appeals court in 2005 held that the university was bound by contract to keep the name Confederate Memorial Hall. It was built in the 1930s as a women's dormitory with a $50,000 donation from UDC in return for naming the building and granting free rent to descendants of Confederate fighters.

But Vanderbilt prevailed last year in removing the name by returning the present value of the donation—$1.2 million.