A federal judge has ruled in favor of the Virginia NAACP, ordering a county school board to once again change the names of two schools that had been reinstated to honor Confederate military figures.
In an opinion filed Thursday, Judge Michael F. Urbanski stated that the Shenandoah County school board violated Black students’ rights under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which prohibits racial discrimination in state-supported institutions. The court also determined that the decision breached the Equal Educational Opportunities Act.
The judge described the names of Confederate army officers as "vestiges" of Shenandoah County's segregationist past, which mandated separate schools for Black and white students.
"The Confederate names were restored with complete awareness of their historic legacy and ongoing discriminatory impact," Urbanski, in the U.S. District Court of Virginia, wrote. "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 board was ordered to decide on new school names "on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed."
Unlike memorials dedicated to Confederate figures, schools are environments where children should experience an "educational environment free of vestiges of racial discrimination," Urbanski added.
Jim Guynn, the attorney representing Shenandoah County, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement released Friday, the NAACP Virginia State Conference hailed the ruling as "a decisive victory" for students.
"For decades, the practice of honoring Confederate leaders in Virginia schools has been steeped in a history of racial discrimination," said its president, the Rev. Cozy Bailey. "The school board’s 2024 renaming decision is impossible to explain except through the lens of race."
The Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs represented the NAACP in the case.
"The court acknowledged that such names inflict real, racially disproportionate harm," stated Kaitlin Banner, deputy legal director.
The Virginia NAACP filed the lawsuit in June 2024 on behalf of six students and their parents. It followed the school board’s 5-1 vote to revert Mountain View High School to Stonewall Jackson High School and Honey Run Elementary to Ashby-Lee Elementary, which combines the names of Gen. Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby, a Confederate cavalry officer. The board’s decision reversed a 2020 vote to remove the original names, which occurred amid nationwide protests against racial injustice.
The NAACP argued in its lawsuit that Black students, who constitute less than 3% of the school system’s population, would be "required against their will to endorse the violent defense of slavery pursued by the Confederacy and the symbolism that these images have in the modern White supremacist movement."
Under Donald Trump’s administration, some statues honoring Confederate figures have been restored after being removed in 2020. This aligns with Trump's ongoing efforts to influence how American history is presented at Smithsonian museums, monuments in national parks, and in classrooms.
Board members who voted to restore the Confederate names asserted they were honoring popular community sentiment. They claimed that the previous board members, who voted to remove the names in 2020, had disregarded constituents and due process in the matter.
