Judge rules Virginia school board discriminated against Black students by restoring Confederate names

The Shenandoah County School Board must rename two schools after a federal court found its 2024 decision violated students’ rights.

A federal judge has ordered a Virginia school board to replace two Confederate school names it restored in 2024, ruling that the decision discriminated against Black students. The ruling is the latest turn in a fight that began when the Virginia NAACP filed a lawsuit after the school board’s 2024 vote reversed changes made during the 2020 racial justice protests. The Confederate school names must now be changed again.

In an opinion filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Virginia, Judge Michael F. Urbanski found that the Shenandoah County School Board violated Black students’ rights under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and the Equal Educational Opportunities Act.

AP reported that Urbanski described the names honoring Confederate officers as vestiges of the county’s segregationist history. He ordered the board to choose new names on a racially nondiscriminatory basis and to do so “with all deliberate speed.”

“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,” wrote Urbanski.

The case centers on Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby-Lee Elementary School. In May 2024, the board voted 5-1 to restore the names after they had been changed to Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary in 2020.

Stonewall Jackson was a Confederate general, while Ashby-Lee combines the names of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and cavalry officer Turner Ashby.

The Virginia NAACP sued the following month on behalf of six students and their parents. The organization argued that the Confederate school names subjected Black students to a racially discriminatory educational environment and forced them to participate under symbols associated with the Confederacy and white supremacy. Black students make up less than 3% of the school system’s population.

School board members who supported restoring the names said they were responding to community sentiment and correcting what they viewed as a flawed 2020 process.

The Virginia NAACP called the ruling a “decisive victory” for students. State conference president Rev. Cozy Bailey said honoring Confederate leaders in Virginia schools is rooted in a history of racial discrimination.