Representatives for the NAACP, Shenandoah County students, and school board appeared in federal court in Harrisonburg on Tuesday to present closing arguments over the reinstatement of Confederate names on two schools. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
The battle over the meaning of Confederate names and their impacts on Black students goes back to the 2020 school board's decision to retire the names Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby-Lee Elementary School, and the 2024 board's decision to reinstate them.
U.S. District Judge Michael F. Urbanski ruled in September that this violated students' First Amendment rights. The plaintiffs' other claims, that the school board also violated the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and the Equal Educational Opportunities Act, went to trial in December. The parties then had about three months to file their proposed conclusions and responses, which totalled more than 300 pages.
After oral arguments on Tuesday, the Rev. Cozy Bailey, president of the NAACP Virginia State Conference, said he's feeling confident about the outcome.
COZY BAILEY: I want to emphasize, again, the historical significance of what this case is all about. Is it okay to have Black children – quite frankly, all children – go into something that memorializes traitors from this union that we call the United States? Is that okay? We think it's not okay. We think that it is racist in nature. And so that's why this case is so important.
Counsel for the plaintiffs argue that the Confederate names have a discriminatory impact on Black students – making them feel devalued and "forcing them to work harder to achieve their academic and extracurricular success." To win, they also have to prove that the school board had discriminatory intent, which they say is evidenced in part by their unwillingness to believe the testimony of Black students prior to the 2024 decision and at trial.
BAILEY: I think the really important thing is, is that they heard and they didn't care. We have known from time immemorial that when people who are in power begin to lose power, then they will do whatever it is they can do to retain that power. In this case, the symbolism of celebrating people who oppressed Black people in this country was a symbol of power for these people. And so, as they said, they campaigned on it. They campaigned on, "we're going to change those names back to it," because that emphasizes their power. Yeah, they understood and they believed, but they didn't care.
Counsel for the defendants argued that the Black student plaintiffs failed to prove discriminatory impact because they were successful. They also said the 2020 process of retiring the names was so flawed it violated the Freedom of Information Act, and that it's impossible to know what motivated the school board to name Stonewall Jackson High in 1959, despite its timing during Virginia's campaign of 'massive resistance' to school desegregation. Attorney Jim Guynn said "there is no real, capital 't' truth in history. … Courts should not rely on historical theory because it changes."
WMRA plans to speak with members of the defense on Wednesday, and will report back as we're able. Urbanski said he would issue a decision "just as soon as we can."
