Judge orders Virginia county to replace Confederate names it restored to schools in 2024
By Maya Ellison · Reporting from Detroit ·
The persistent, corrosive habit of local boards attempting to rewrite history in their own image never ceases to shock me.
Schools cannot be sites for a nostalgic accounting of violence
The persistent, corrosive habit of local boards attempting to rewrite history in their own image never ceases to shock me. It reminds you, starkly, that the fight for basic human dignity—the kind of dignity my grandfather fought for at the union hall—is not over just because we got through another election cycle. The latest ruling out of Roanoke, Virginia, proves it. A federal judge sided with the Virginia NAACP against Shenandoah County school board’s attempt to reinstate Confederate military names to two schools.
This wasn't a debate about aesthetics; it was a direct confrontation between local political vanity and constitutional law. As reported by apnews.com and pbs.org, Judge Michael F. Urbanski ruled that the county violated Black students’ rights under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The board had voted 5-1 to revert Mountain View High School back to Stonewall Jackson High School and Honey Run Elementary to Ashby-Lee Elementary—names steeped in a segregationist history.
"Affirmative act of reinstating these vestiges" is the law's clearest warning
The judge’s language was surgical, precise, and morally unyielding: “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.” This wasn't just legal boilerplate; it was a profound statement about accountability.
The NAACP Virginia State Conference called the ruling "a decisive victory," and for good reason. Rev. Cozy Bailey cut through the local board’s attempts at community consensus, stating flatly that their 2024 decision is “impossible to explain except through the lens of race.” The law acknowledges what activists have known all along: these names are not historical markers; they are symbols that inflict "real, racially disproportionate harm," as Kaitlin Banner noted.
The mechanism here echoes Brown v. Board of Education. Just as the Supreme Court mandated that state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment, this federal judge used constitutional law to mandate the removal of local policies perpetuating racial discrimination in a core public institution. The shared mechanism is undeniable: when concentrated power—whether it’s wealthy developers ignoring zoning or local boards honoring Confederate officers—tries to use institutional structures to maintain systemic inequality, the judiciary must act as the counterweight.
Education cannot be compromised by nostalgia for white supremacy
Judge Urbanski was clear on the difference between a memorial and a school: "Unlike memorials named after Confederate figures, schools are places where children should have an 'educational environment free of vestiges of racial discrimination.'" This is the core principle that must guide every policy decision—from zoning to curriculum to naming conventions.
The board’s defense rested on vague notions of “popular community sentiment,” a tired argument used whenever power structures feel threatened by accountability. But history doesn't grant permission for nostalgia; it demands justice. The law cannot allow local, self-serving impulses to override the fundamental right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The verdict is clear: when institutions—whether they are schools or union halls—are meant to serve all people and build a future for everyone, their foundations must be built on universal principles of equality, not on the bloodstained names of those who fought against it. The law has drawn that line again, protecting the most vulnerable students from the corrosive power of historical erasure.