Virginia NAACP sues school board to restore Confederate names

The Virginia NAACP sued the county school board on Tuesday over restoring two schools to Confederate military names, accusing them of adopting segregationist values ​​and exposing black students to a racially discriminatory educational environment.

Last month, the Shenandoah County school board voted 5-1 to rename Mountain View High School back to Stonewall Jackson High School and Honey Run Elementary to Ashby Lee Elementary. The vote overturned a 2020 decision to remove the unique names amid nationwide protests over racial injustice.

The federal lawsuit said black students make up lower than 3% of the school system’s population. The plaintiffs are five students – identified by their initials and described as black, white and biracial – and their parents.

The Associated Press sent an email in search of comment to school board Chairman Dennis C. Barlow.

The NAACP wrote that students “will be required, against their will, to support the Confederacy’s brutal defense of slavery and the symbolism these images hold in the modern white supremacist movement.”

For example, the lawsuit states that an incoming freshman, who’s black, shall be forced to play sports as a member of Stonewall Jackson’s “Generals.” And she’s going to have to wear a uniform “adorned with a name and logo symbolizing hatred, white supremacy and mass resistance to integration.”

If a student doesn’t fully take part in school sports or other activities, she may lose future opportunities, including playing varsity sports, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Harrisonburg.

The NAACP claims Confederate school names violate students’ First Amendment rights, which include the suitable “not to express views with which the person disagrees.” He also cites the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which “prohibits racial discrimination in state-supported institutions.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which maintains a database of greater than 2,000 Confederate monuments across the country, was unaware of one other case of a school system restoring a Confederate name that had been removed, senior research analyst Rivka Maizlish said in May.

Overall, the trend of removing Confederate names and monuments continues, even when it has slowed somewhat since 2020, she said, noting that the Army has renamed nine properties named after Confederate leaders and removed a Confederate monument from Arlington National Cemetery.

Shenandoah County school board members who voted to restore Confederate names in May said they were honoring public sentiment. They said previous board members who removed the names in 2020 ignored voters and due process within the matter.

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The 2023 elections significantly modified the makeup of the school board, with one board member writing in an op-ed for the Northern Virginia Daily that the outcomes made Shenandoah County “the first 100% conservative board in anyone’s memory.”

That board member, Gloria Carlineo, said during a May board meeting that opponents of Confederate names should “stop bringing racism and prejudice into everything” since it “distracts attention from real incidents of racism.”

The only board member who voted against restoring the Confederate names, Kyle Gutshall, said he respects either side of the controversy but believes most residents in his district want to keep the Mountain View and Honey Run names as they’re.

“I don’t judge anyone or look down on anyone for the decision they make,” he said. “It’s a complex issue.”

During several hours of public comment, county residents spoke on either side of the difficulty.

Beth Ogle, a parent and longtime resident, said restoring Confederate names is “a statement to the world that you do not value the dignity and respect of minority students, faculty and staff.”

Kenny Wakeman, a lifelong county resident, said the Stonewall Jackson name “stood proudly for 60 years until 2020” when he stated that “the actions of a rogue police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota” prompted the choice to change name, a reference to the murder of George Floyd, which sparked nationwide protests and debate over racial injustice.

Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was a Confederate general from Virginia who gained fame in the course of the First Battle of Bull Run near Manassas in 1861 and died in 1863 after being shot and having his arm amputated. Jackson’s name was also faraway from one other high school in Prince William County, Virginia, in 2020. This school was renamed Unity Reed High School.

The name Ashby Lee comes from each Gen. Robert E. Lee, a Virginia native who commanded Confederate forces, and Turner Ashby, a Confederate cavalry officer who was killed within the 1862 Battle of Harrisonburg. A high school near Harrisonburg can be named after Ashby.

The resolution approved by the school board states that personal donations shall be used to cover the fee of the name change.

Shenandoah County, a mostly rural area of ​​about 45,000 people about 100 miles west of Washington, D.C., has long been politically conservative. In 2020, Republican Donald Trump won 70% of the presidential vote in Shenandoah, regardless that Democrat Joe Biden won Virginia by 10 points.