[Daily Signal] A federal judge ruled that Shenandoah County must once again change the names of two schools it had returned to their original names in 2024.
The schools had been named Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby-Lee Elementary School until the names were changed in 2020 to Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School.
After new school board members were elected two years ago, the board voted 5-1 to restore the original names, but it refused to publicly explain the motives behind the change. Four students and the Virginia NAACP sued the district, launching the federal case.
U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski wrote a 141-page decision that concluded that the 2024 change violated the rights black students have under the 14th Amendment as well as the Equal Educational Opportunities Act.
"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," he wrote.
The judge took pains to write that his ruling is based on the unique history of Shenandoah County and that it therefore doesn’t apply to other schools in Virginia that are named for Confederates.
Education Week reported that as of March, there are 17 such schools in the Commonwealth. Urbanski specifically cited Virginia’s policy of Massive Resistance. It began in 1956 after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board decision desegregated schools. "From the voluminous record in this case, the court can readily trace the connection between the Confederate names and the de jure system of segregation," he wrote.
For example, there was no high school for black students in the entire county until the 1960s. "They were required to take buses several miles and hours away in order to attend segregated high schools administered by neighboring school districts—experiencing higher barriers to participation in extracurricular activities and athletics than their White peers," Urbanski wrote.
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