A federal judge has ruled in favor of five Shenandoah County students in a case challenging the move by the Shenandoah County School Board in 2024 to rename a county high school after Confederate Civil War Gen. Stonewall Jackson.
“By reinstating the name ‘Stonewall Jackson High School’ and thereby compelling students to advance the School Board’s chosen message favoring ‘Stonewall Jackson’ through the conduct of extracurricular activities rendered expressive by that name, the School Board has violated plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights, as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment, against compelled speech,” wrote Michael F. Urbanski, the senior judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, in a legal opinion handed down on Tuesday.
Urbanski, a William & Mary alum with his law degree from UVA, was appointed to the federal bench by Barack Obama in 2010.
The opinion handed down by Urbanski on Tuesday does not require the Shenandoah County School Board to immediately remove Stonewall Jackson’s name from the high school.
A second trial dealing with the students’ claims that the names also violate the Equal Protection Clause, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Education Opportunities Act is set for December.
ICYMI
- Shenandoah County returning names of Jackson, Lee, Ashby to public schools
- ‘Reminders of Confederate legacies’: Shenandoah County NAACP sues school board
- Students’ lawsuit against Shenandoah County School Board proceeds
- Stonewall Jackson High School student speaks out on lawsuit against school board
Urbanski is allowing the Stonewall Jackson name to remain on the high school until the matter in the December case is settled.
The Shenandoah County School Board voted in 2020 to retire the names of Stonewall Jackson and two other Confederate generals, Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby, from two county schools located in Quicksburg, renaming the high school Mountain View, and the elementary school Honey Run.
A newly elected school board then reversed course in 2024 and reinstated the names of the generals, urged on by a group calling itself Coalition for Better Schools, which claimed to have surveyed residents and found that 91.3 percent wanted the old names back on the schools.
“We understand that the decision to rename these schools was made in response to discussions surrounding Confederate symbols. However, 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 the board.
Around 80 people spoke on the matter at the school board meeting preceding the name change, with more than 50 speaking against restoring the old names.
“I am a Black student, and if the names are restored, I would have to represent a man that fought for my ancestors to be slaves,” one student told the school board, adding later: “I think it is unfair to me that restoring the names is up for discussion.”
Urbanski agreed, finding that forcing high school students to be “walking billboards” for Stonewall Jackson violates their First Amendment rights.
According to his legal opinion, students in Shenandoah County cannot be compelled to be carriers of the name Stonewall Jackson and the Confederate message that it represents.
“The record indicates that the highly symbolic name ‘Stonewall Jackson’ was selected to convey a message or messages, such as a message signaling that the 2020 School Board’s efforts to condemn racism were counterproductive,” Urbanski wrote.
The NAACP Virginia State Conference, along with the five individual students, brought the suit, alleging that forcing Black students to attend a school honoring Confederate leaders creates a school environment that denies them an equal opportunity to an education.
“This decision reverberates far beyond the walls of Shenandoah County’s schools,” said Marja Plater, senior counsel at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, which filed the complaint on behalf of the Virginia NAACP, along with the law firm Covington & Burling LLP.
“The federal district court judge delivered a powerful victory for students, affirming that they cannot be obligated to promote the legacy of Stonewall Jackson — a symbol deeply associated with the Confederacy,” Plater said. “The court’s opinion makes it unmistakably clear: students deserve the freedom to define themselves unencumbered by symbols they do not choose. Children should never be compelled to promote a message that runs counter to their beliefs.”
“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, an attorney with Covington & Burling. “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.”
“This ruling is more than a victory. It reinforces what we know to be true; those who led the Confederacy should not be honored,” said Rev. Cozy Bailey, president of the NAACP Virginia State Conference. “The students in Shenandoah County and across the Commonwealth deserve to be in a learning environment and participate in extracurricular activities proudly and one that honors who they are.”
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Chris Graham
