Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Virginia NAACP Over Confederate School Names
ROANOKE, Va. (AP) — A U.S. federal judge has delivered a verdict favoring the Virginia NAACP in a lawsuit against a county school board’s decision to restore Confederate military names to two schools. The court determined that this action discriminates against Black students and mandated the board to rename the schools.
Judge Michael F. Urbanski, overseeing the case in the U.S. District Court of Virginia, concluded that the Shenandoah County school board’s actions violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which prohibits racial discrimination in institutions supported by the state. The court also found the decision in breach of the Equal Educational Opportunities Act.
The reinstated names, honoring Confederate army officers, are described as remnants of Shenandoah County’s segregationist past, when Black and white students attended separate schools.
Judge Urbanski remarked, “The Confederate names were restored with complete awareness of their historic legacy and ongoing discriminatory impact. In the court’s view, the affirmative act of reinstating these vestiges of segregation is far more problematic than a passive failure to remove a long-standing name or symbol.”
The judge instructed the board to select new school names “on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed,” emphasizing that educational settings should be free from the remnants of racial discrimination.
Efforts to reach Jim Guynn, the attorney for Shenandoah County, for comment were not immediately successful.
The NAACP Virginia State Conference celebrated the decision as “a decisive victory” for students. The conference’s president, the Rev. Cozy Bailey, stated, “For decades, the practice of honoring Confederate leaders in Virginia schools has been steeped in a history of racial discrimination. The school board’s 2024 renaming decision is impossible to explain except through the lens of race.”
Representing the NAACP in this case were attorneys from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. Kaitlin Banner, the deputy legal director, noted, “The court acknowledged that such names inflict real, racially disproportionate harm.”
The lawsuit was initiated by the Virginia NAACP in June 2024, representing six students and their parents, after the school board voted 5-1 to revert the names of Mountain View High School to Stonewall Jackson High School and Honey Run Elementary to Ashby-Lee Elementary, which commemorate Gen. Robert E. Lee and Confederate cavalry officer Turner Ashby. This decision reversed a 2020 board action that removed these names amidst nationwide protests against racial injustice.
The NAACP’s legal argument highlighted that Black students, representing less than 3% of the district’s population, would be forced to “endorse the violent defense of slavery pursued by the Confederacy and the symbolism that these images have in the modern White supremacist movement.”
During President Donald Trump’s second administration, some Confederate statues have been restored after their removal in 2020, as part of efforts to influence how American history is presented in museums, national parks, and educational settings.
Board members supporting the restoration of Confederate names claimed they were reflecting the majority community sentiment, suggesting the previous 2020 decision disregarded public opinion and due process.
