U.S. District Judge Michael F. Urbanski ruled that Stonewall Jackson High School students in Shenandoah County, Virginia, cannot be forced to bear Jackson’s name and its pro-slavery associations.
The Virginia National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) successfully argued that students wearing clothing that says "Stonewall Jackson Generals" during school activities amounts to compelled speech.
Shenandoah County Public Schools had previously reinstated the general’s name. The district changed the school’s name to “Mountain View” because of political tension in 2020.
After Urbanski’s ruling, Stonewall Jackson High School still appears on the district’s website.
How long it remains is yet to play out.
"I don't think anyone is actually looking at someone wearing a Stonewall Jackson Generals basketball uniform and coming to the conclusion that they must endorse every single thing that Stonewall Jackson did or believed,” Matt Lamb, associated editor of The College Fix, told AFN.
Because this is a federal lawsuit, Lamb says, if the plaintiffs are successful, other districts nationwide could be encouraged to file similar lawsuits.
"It's just going to create this legal mess where frankly, I think the courts should have stayed out of it and let the school board deal with it so perhaps some better sort of resolution could be reached without a judicial mandate."
