Missouri's state's litter prevention program got an unusual ally last year: A neo-Nazi group adopted a half-mile section of highway in Springfield and picked up the trash.

According to an Associated Press report, the state said it had no way to reject the group's application, saying membership in the Adopt-A-Highway program can't be denied because of a group's political beliefs.

While the state lawmakers felt powerless to refuse the request, it responded with an amendment to a large transportation bill that would rename that section of road after Abraham Joshua Heschel, a rabbi who narrowly escaped the Nazis in World War II and later marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

But that move is being criticized by Heschel's daughter, who objects to naming the neo-Nazi's patch of highway after her father and calls the plan "highly inappropriate and vulgar."

"I don't want Nazis stomping on a highway named for my father. What are they going to do then if they don't pick up the litter? The whole thing is disgusting," said Susannah Heschel, professor of Jewish history at Dartmouth College.

"It may be an attempt to teach the neo- Nazis a lesson," she said. "But I think it's an affront to my father's dignity to attach his name to a neo-Nazi highway."

In May, State Rep. Sara Lampe introduced legislation renaming the Springfield stretch of highway after Heschel after consulting with the Jewish Community Relations Board of Kansas City. The measure was added as an amendment to the large transportation bill.

"For the National Socialist movement to be in the Adopt-a-Highway program is well within their rights," said Rabbi Alan L. Cohen of the Jewish Community Relations Board of Kansas City.

"But obviously there were people raising the concern that this is the wrong message for people to see driving down a Missouri highway, that there are National Socialists out here," Cohen said.

Susannah Heschel said she contacted Lampe's office last month and told them about her objections over naming just the neo-Nazi's stretch of highway after her father.

"I understand the good intentions," Susannah Heschel said. "Everybody wants to get rid of racism. ... But I don't think it should be done this way."