Virginia School Board Votes to Restore Confederate Names

A Virginia school board voted Friday to restore the names of Confederate military leaders to a high school and an elementary school, four years after the names were removed, a reversal that some experts believe is the first of its kind.

The Shenandoah County School Board voted 5-1 to rename Mountain View High School as Stonewall Jackson High School and Honey Run Elementary as Ashby Lee Elementary.

Friday’s vote reverses a 2020 school board decision at a time when Virginia and Southern school systems were removing Confederate names from schools and other public places in response to Black lives matter movement.

Rivka Maizlish, senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which maintains a database of more than 2,000 Confederate memorials across the country, said she is not aware of any other school that has decided to restore a Confederate name which has been removed.

Overall, she said, the trend of removing Confederate names and memorials has continued, even if it has slowed somewhat since 2020. She noted that last year the Army renamed nine installations that were named in honor of Confederate leaders, and the Army also removed a Confederate memorial from Arlington National Cemetery.

In Virginia, local governments were prohibited from removing Confederate memorials and statues until the law was changed in 2020. However, the law preserving Confederate memorials did not apply to school names.

On Friday, school board members who voted to restore the Confederate names said the previous board ignored popular sentiment and due process when the names were removed.

Elections in 2023 have significantly changed the composition of the school board.

Board member Gloria Carlineo said during a six-hour meeting that began Thursday night that opponents of Confederate names should “stop bringing racism and bigotry into everything” because it “detracts from the true instances of racism.” .

The only council member to vote against restoring the Confederate names, Kyle Gutshall, said he respects both sides of the debate but believes the majority of residents in his district want to keep the names Mountain View and Honey Run.

“I don’t judge anyone or look down on anyone for the decision they’re making,” he said. “It’s a complex issue.”

During several hours of public comment, county residents spoke on both sides of the issue.

Beth Ogle, a longtime county resident with children in the school system, said restoring Confederate names is “a statement to the world that you do not value the dignity and respect of your minority students, teachers and staff.”

Kenny Wakeman, a lifelong resident of the county, said the name Stonewall Jackson “stood proudly for 60 years until 2020,” when he said the “actions of a rogue police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota” sparked a backlash to change the name, a reference to death of George Floyd in Minnesota, which spurred a nationwide series of protests and debates about racial justice.

Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was a Confederate general from Virginia who gained fame at the First Battle of Bull Run near Manassas in 1861 and died in 1863 after being shot in battle and having his arm amputated. Jackson’s name was also removed from another high school in Prince William County, Virginia in 2020 which is now known as Unity Reed High School.

Ashby Lee was named for General Robert E. Lee, a Virginia native who commanded Confederate forces, and Turner Ashby, a Confederate cavalry officer who was killed in battle in 1862 near Harrisonburg, Virginia. A high school near Harrisonburg is also named after Ashby.

The resolution approved by the school board states that private donations will be used to pay for the name changes. Shenandoah County is a largely rural jurisdiction with a population of about 45,000, about 100 miles west of the nation’s capital.

In Virginia, local governments were banned from removing Confederate memorials and statues until a 2020 law lifted those restrictions. Statues of Confederate leaders, including Lee, Jackson and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, were removed from Richmond’s famous Monument Avenue in 2020 and 2021 following protests and vandalization of the statues.