Federal judge says restoring Stonewall Jackson name at Shenandoah school violates students’ rights

BY: NATHANIEL CLINE - SEPTEMBER 10, 2025
3:00 PM

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A view from outside Stonewall Jackson High School in Shenandoah County. (Photo by Nathaniel Cline/Virginia Mercury)

A federal judge in the U.S. Western District Court opined on Tuesday that Shenandoah County School Board’s decision to restore the moniker of Stonewall Jackson High School violated a group of students’ First Amendment rights, since it compelled them to promote a positive image of the Confederate general.

In siding with the students, U.S. Court Judge Michael F. Urbanski wrote that Jackson’s name “is expressive as a symbol of racial exclusion in public schools.”

In June 2024, the NAACP Virginia State Conference and five students enrolled in the school division filed a lawsuit alleging that the board’s decision to rename the school after the controversial Civil War era figure violated the U.S. Constitution, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Educational Opportunity Act. The plaintiffs want Confederate names, mascots and vestiges removed from the school, and to prevent any future school naming involving Confederate leaders or references to the Confederacy.

Urbanski said that the board cannot force anyone to express a message, and that the students were being forced to convey a message endorsing Jackson by their school being renamed after him, and by wearing their school’s “Generals” apparel and being identified as “Stonewall Jackson Generals” during extracurricular activities.

“By reinstating the name “Stonewall Jackson High School” and thereby compelling students to advance the School Board’s chosen message favoring “Stonewall Jackson” through the conduct of extracurricular activities rendered expressive by that name, the School Board has violated plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights, as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment, against compelled speech,” Urbanski wrote.

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