Two Virginia schools will revert to their Confederate names in U-turn four years after board axed references to military leaders in wake of George Floyd protests

A Virginia school board today voted to reinstate Confederate names to two schools that were stripped of their original names in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. 

The school board of Shenandoah County, Virginia, voted 5-1 to undo the 2020 decision, which saw a high school and elementary school stripping the names of three military leaders of the pro-slavery Southern states in the US Civil War: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Turner Ashby.

The schools were called Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby Lee Elementary School, but since been called Mountain View High School and Honey Run Elementary School. 

School board documents showed the moved was part of a resolution to condemn 'racism and affirm the division’s commitment to an inclusive school environment for all.'

A local conservative coalition, the Coalition for Better Schools, asked the Shenandoah County school board in April to reinstate the names, writing that doing so was 'essential to honor our community's heritage.'

In its written request to the board, the group cited surveys that it mailed to residents of the districts from which the schools' students are drawn, saying that out of 1,160 responses to 8,507 surveys sent, more than 90% favored switching back to the Confederate names.

Sarah Kohrs, who graduated from both schools, co-leads a citizens group that has garnered 687 signatures on an online petition to keep the current names. Her oldest child attends the high school and she expects to enroll a younger child there as well.

'Their diplomas are going to state something, and I don't want it to state something linked to a Confederate general,' she said. 'I had to deal with that my entire life. I don't want my kids to deal with that.'

Kyle Gutshall, the board's vice chairman, said the 2020 name change had increased public attention on the board and helped shift its political composition to the right.

He voted to reinstate the Confederate names when a similar motion came up in 2022, primarily because he felt the 2020 decision was made without sufficient public input. The 2022 motion failed due to a tied vote.

Gutshall declined to say how he would vote on Thursday, saying there was 'overwhelming' support in his district to keep the current names but that a 60% majority of the entire county still appeared to favor the old ones.

Michelle Manning, who represented Gutshall's district in 2020, said she and other board members heard for weeks from county residents who supported changing the schools' names before they voted to do so, even though in-person feedback opportunities were more limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Manning said some supporters of the current names might be afraid to speak out due to how charged the issue had become. 'I received phone calls threatening my well-being after our vote in 2020, so I personally cannot blame people,' she said.

Reverting to the names bucks a four-year trend of US institutions removing symbols of the Confederacy following nationwide racial justice protests triggered by the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers.

Among the more than 60 U.S. schools formerly named after Confederate figures that have changed their name since 2020, none have reinstated the Confederate names so far, according to trade publication Education Week, which tracks such schools.