From the Virginia NAACP:
Federal Judge Denies Shenandoah County’s Efforts to Dismiss Litigation Challenging Reinstatement of Discriminatory Confederate School Names
Students and Virginia NAACP Members May Proceed with All Claims Against School Board
Richmond, Virginia – Yesterday evening, a federal district court judge denied the Shenandoah County School Board’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit concerning their reinstatement of school names honoring Confederate generals. US District Judge Michael F. Urbanski determined that, taking the facts alleged in the complaint as true at this stage of the case, the School Board’s 2024 reinstatement of Confederate names it had removed in 2021 because of their discriminatory effect plausibly violates students’ rights.
In response to the court’s decision, Rev. Cozy Bailey, president of the NAACP Virginia State Conference, noted that “We are encouraged by Judge Urbanski’s decision. This puts us one step closer to ensuring that Black students and all students in Shenandoah County can attend schools that foster inclusive and safe learning environments.”
Since May 2024, Black students and others in Shenandoah County have been forced to attend schools named after Confederate generals and identify with those Confederate values in order to receive their education.
Five students and the NAACP Virginia State Conference filed a lawsuit against Shenandoah County in June 2024, within weeks of the Shenandoah County School Board’s vote to restore Confederate names to two schools. According to the complaint, forcing Black students to attend a school honoring Confederate leaders creates a school environment that denies them an equal opportunity to an education and violates their right to Equal Protection under the Fourteenth Amendment and First Amendment right to free speech. The Washington Lawyers’ Committee and Covington & Burling LLP represent the Virginia NAACP and student families.
“Since Brown vs. Board of Education, courts have recognized that education is a right that must be available to all students, and that Black students experience very real harm when they are forced to confront schools that send a message that they don’t belong,” said Marja Plater, Senior Counsel at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee who co-argued the case before the District Court. “Today’s decision recognizes that renaming Shenandoah County schools after Confederate generals subject Black students to those same harms.”
The opinion asserts that the students and Virginia NAACP have plausibly alleged that the Confederate names infringe upon their rights under the Constitution and federal anti-discrimination laws. In this pivotal decision, the court found that “the Confederate names cannot be explained away as products of history or inertia. Rather, in 2024, the School Board deliberately chose to reinstate the very names it had itself repudiated as discriminatory in 2021 . . . That the School Board acted affirmatively to double down on Confederate school names so soon after acknowledging their discriminatory effect makes it plausible that the reinstatement decision was intended to have the recently observed discriminatory effect.”
“This ruling affirms the importance of addressing our clients’ claims that the continued use of the Confederate school names violates the fundamental principles of equality enshrined in the U.S. Constitution,” Covington & Burling’s Ashley Joyner Chavous said. “All students deserve to attend schools free from the harmful legacy of Confederate symbolism. We remain committed to pursuing this critical fight for constitutional rights and educational equity.”
Based on the facts of the complaint, the court ruled that the School Board’s renaming of the schools plausibly violates the First Amendment because it forces students to choose “between exclusion from extracurricular activities and becoming mobile billboards for the message the School Board expresses with the name Stonewall Jackson, a name laden in historical meanings which are plainly significant in Shenandoah County.” The School Board also plausibly violates the Fourteenth Amendment and federal anti-discrimination laws because, through its reinstatement of the Confederate names, it “conveys a message of exclusion to Black students, thus disproportionately damaging Black students’ educational experience.” The court found it plausible that the School Board reinstated the Confederate school names “because of, not merely in spite of, their discriminatory effect.”
The Virginia NAACP and the families with students in the Shenandoah County Public Schools seek the removal of Confederate names and mascots and to prevent any future naming involving Confederate leaders.
A copy of the decision can be found here.
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