RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — The Shenandoah County School Board is facing legal backlash after becoming the first school district in the nation to restore Confederate names to schools.
“We feel that this is an egregious action,” Virginia NAACP President Reverend Cozy Bailey told 8News.
In May, the board voted to revert two schools back to their original names honoring Confederate soldiers Stonewall Jackson, Turner Ashby and Robert E. Lee.
“We respect our families, our neighbors, and our community, the very ideals promoted by Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby,” one citizen said at the May school board meeting.
However, the NAACP is now suing the board saying that “forcing students to attend a school honoring Confederate leaders creates a school environment that denies them an equal opportunity to an education.”
“It violates the rights of the students there who should not have to go to school in a shrine to secessionists, insurrectionists and basically traitors,” Bailey explained.
The lawsuit also alleges that naming the schools after Confederate leaders is a violation of student’s First Amendment rights by forcing them to express support for Confederate figures.
‘“To have to wear a jersey if they are for instance a member of an athletic team that says I am a member of the Robert E. Lee Generals, it’s something that they would think about and it has a debilitating and discouraging effect on them,” Bailey said.
8News contacted Shenandoah County School Board Chairman Dennis Barlow for comment on the lawsuit. He said the school board will “defend our policy in court.”
