In a win for plaintiffs, a Virginia federal judge has ruled that a school board’s decision to reinstate the name of a Confederate general on a public high school violated students’ First Amendment rights, effectively turning them into “mobile billboards” for a message they may not endorse.
In a 71-page opinion Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Michael F. Urbanski said students who attend Stonewall Jackson High School in Shenandoah County cannot be compelled to be carriers of Jackson's name and the pro-slavery historical legacy he represents.
“When plaintiffs’ bodies, hard work, talents, and achievements are intertwined with the name ‘Stonewall Jackson,’ plaintiffs are enlisted in conferring honor on that name,” Urbanski wrote, “and because that name conveys a message well-understood by viewers in plaintiffs’ community, plaintiffs are enlisted in conferring honor on that message by extension.”
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed last year and first reported by NBC News.
In the lawsuit, the NAACP Virginia State Conference and five individual students challenged the Shenandoah County School Board’s decision to restore the names of Confederate officers to two public schools: Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby-Lee Elementary School, after the Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby.
The complaint alleged that the name changes created “an unlawful and discriminatory educational environment for Black students,” and accused the school board of violating the First and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Equal Education Opportunities Act.
Melody Sheppard, the superintendent of Shenandoah County Public Schools, and Dennis C. Barlow, the chairman of the county school board, did not immediately reply to emails requesting comment on the judge’s ruling.
Urbanski stopped short of ordering the school board to change the names of the two schools. He ruled strictly on the First Amendment claims concerning Stonewall Jackson. The other claims will be the focus of a trial scheduled to begin in December, according to Marja Plater, senior counsel at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee, which represents the NAACP and the students.
“This decision is a key vindication of what our clients have argued since the School Board proposed reinstating the Confederate names: forcing them to constantly espouse pro-slavery, anti-Black messages is a violation of their First Amendment constitutional rights,” said Li Reed, of the law firm Covington & Burling, which also represents the plaintiffs.
“The families and students, and the Virginia State Conference NAACP, have been steadfast and courageous in their fight to protect their rights in this case, and we look forward to vindicating the remainder of their claims at trial,” Reed added.
Five years ago, a previous incarnation of the county school board removed the Confederate names after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, inspiring a national reckoning over race. The calls for racial justice led some communities to remove Confederate symbolism and statues of Confederate generals.
But the conservative group Coalition for Better Schools petitioned Shenandoah County officials to reinstate the names of Jackson, Lee and Ashby. “We believe that revisiting this decision is essential to honor our community’s heritage and respect the wishes of the majority,” the coalition wrote in a letter last year.
The sitting members of the school board reversed the 2020 decision last year, in a measure that passed 5-1. The five members who voted in favor of the proposal said in part that the previous decision was made too hastily, without necessary community input.
