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IOWA CITY — A Johnson County district judge Friday ordered the state to stop removing historic material from the 168-year-old State Historical Society’s Iowa City research facility that it over the summer decided to close without warning or public discussion.

Judge Kevin McKeever also denied the state’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit that 17 historians, archivists, professors, donors, and other community members filed against the state — accusing it of violating Iowa Code in its decision to close the research facility that’s operated in Iowa City since the historical society’s founding in 1857.

“The defendants are hereby ordered not to remove any further documents, artifacts or other related m

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