Ruling cites 14th Amendment equal protection in Shenandoah County case
A federal judge has sided with the Virginia NAACP in its lawsuit against a Shenandoah County school board’s reinstatement of Confederate military names to two schools, ruling that the decision discriminated against Black students.
In an opinion filed Thursday in U.S. District Court of Virginia, Judge Michael F. Urbanski ordered the board to change the schools’ monikers again. The court found the school board violated Black students’ rights under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which forbids racial discrimination in state-supported institutions, and the Equal Educational Opportunities Act.
Urbanski wrote that the Confederate army officers’ names are “vestiges” of Shenandoah County’s segregationist history that required separate schools for Black and white students.
“The Confederate names were restored with complete awareness of their historic legacy and ongoing discriminatory impact,” Urbanski wrote. “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.”