After the Shenandoah County School Board voted to reinstate Confederate leader school names last month, the NAACP Virginia State Conference (Virginia NAACP) and five students have filed a lawsuit in federal court.
The two Quicksburg, VA schools in question are Honey Run Elementary School which changed back to Ashby-Lee Elementary School, and Mountain View High School, which will be reverting back to Stonewall Jackson High School.
The schools were first renamed in 2020 following the racial reckoning in the U.S. prompted by George Floyd’s murder. But four years later, the conservative group Coalition for Better Schools petitioned school board officials to restore the old names, NBC News reports. Per an April 3 letter, “We believe that revisiting this decision is essential to honor our community’s heritage and respect the wishes of the majority.” The renaming measure was passed on May 10.
A look back at Shenandoah County records reveals that the school system has a history of opposing integration, according to the Virginia NAACP. Five years after the U.S. Supreme Court issued the landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, Stonewall Jackson High School was established as a school for white students only, in direct opposition to the high court’s ruling.
The Virginia NAACP says, “the Confederate names signaled to Black students and their families that they were not welcome at the schools, and it took another several years for the first Black students to enroll in high school during the 1963-64 school year.”
The suit filed on Tuesday alleges that the school board created “an unlawful and discriminatory educational environment for Black students.” In addition, the Virginia NAACP laid out “the shameful legacy of segregation and discrimination in Shenandoah County and how restoring the Confederate names embraces that legacy in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Equal Education Opportunities Act.”
Attorneys from the Washington Lawyers’ Committee and Covington & Burling LLP are representing the plaintiffs, who are seeking to retain the schools’ new names as well as preventing any naming and mascots after Confederate leaders in the future.
“This backward move has received a negative reaction all over the world,” said Rev. Cozy Bailey, Virginia NAACP president in a statement. “[T]he world is watching to see if this variety of the seeds of hate and disenfranchisement will take root and return Shenandoah County and the Commonwealth of Virginia to the days when racial exclusion was the law of the land.”
“My belief is the Shenandoah County School Board reaffirmed their commitment to White supremacy and the celebration of a race-based rebellion against the United States of America with their vote to name public schools after military leaders of the Confederate States of America,” Bailey continued.
Marja Plater, Senior Counsel, Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs stated, “By voting for Confederate names, the school board is subjecting children to discrimination…A Black high schooler who wants to play on the soccer team must wear the Stonewall Jackson ‘Generals’ uniform. The student must honor a Confederate leader who fought to keep Black people in chains as slaves. Exposing children to this persistent racism and hate harms their self-worth and long-term health.”
“Public education should benefit everyone, irrespective of race or class. Every student is entitled to an education free from discrimination,” added Ashley Joyner Chavous, Of Counsel for Covington & Burling.
