GRAND FORKS (AP) -- A Fargo activist has asked a University of North Dakota law professor to help him sue to remove the statue of a Greek goddess from the top of the Grand Forks County Courthouse.

Martin Wishnatsky is using a legal argument similar to the one used to try to remove a display of the Ten Commandments in Fargo.

Wishnatsky wrote to Laura Rovner, director of the clinical education program at the UND law school, asking her help in a lawsuit to have a statue of the goddess Themis removed.

Themis, the ancient Greek goddess of law and order, traditionally has been a symbol at U.S. courthouses, her eyes blindfolded and holding the scales of justice. Her statue has been atop the Grand Forks County Courthouse for nearly 90 years.

"As a Christian, I find such representations of pagan religious figures in public places very distressing," Wishnatsky wrote to Rovner.

She had no immediate comment on Wishnatsky's letter, saying she had just received it.

Wishnatsky is known as an anti-abortion activist and a public supporter of the Fargo Ten Commandments display.

Rovner heads a new program at UND's law school, the Civil Rights and Disabilities Project, which has taken as clients the opponents of the Fargo display. They say the Ten Commandments display is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of church and state.

State Rep. Jim Kasper, R-Fargo, asked earlier this year for an opinion from Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem on whether it was legal for the law school's faculty and staff to assist in the Fargo case. Stenehjem ruled the law school was within its rights to take on the case.

"Unfortunately, I do not possess the expertise properly to research the pagan religious origins of the Themis statue and to present the facts demonstrating its roots in heathen worship," Wishnatsky wrote Rovner. "I request the assistance of the clinical education program in developing a lawsuit on the same basis as that granted to the atheistic North Dakota State University professors to bring suit against the city of Fargo over the Ten Commandments monument."

In a letter to the Grand Forks Herald last summer, Rovner wrote about why she thought the law school should be involved in the Fargo case.

"One need not be an atheist to believe that it is inappropriate for government to make adherence to religion relevant in any way to a persons standing in the political community," she wrote.