Court Rules Against Confederate School Names in Virginia’s Shenandoah County

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 desegrated 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.

The judge noted that county leaders should be aware of the history, and he cited an email written by board member Dennis Barlow, who was elected in 2021. Barlow had written that “if there was a so-called ‘massive resistance’ movement, it was neither massive nor actively pursued. In any case, any resentment over the issue has evaporated long ago and is therefore now irrelevant.”

In fact, Massive Resistance was widespread. When federal courts attempted to force Virginia to integrate nine schools in 1958, Gov. James Lindsay Almond closed them, locking out some 13,000 students in Norfolk, Front Royal, and Charlottesville.

The school board is expected to appeal the decision.

“My understanding is that my client will take it as far as necessary, including seeking a writ at the U.S. Supreme Court,” attorney Jim Guynn told WMRA while the case was still under consideration. He added that if the judge is correct, then “every school in the United States that’s named after a Confederate general or someone else who makes people feel uncomfortable could be subject to court order to change the name.”