JEB Stuart High School

            For the past several years, the Fairfax County School board has been enmeshed in a debate about what to do about the name of my alma mater: J.E.B. Stuart High School. General J.E.B. Stuart was a dashing cavalry officer who died in service of the Confederate army. Since the 1980s, when I attended, the high school has been one of the most ethnically diverse and stably racially integrated in the United States. Not only are there white and black students in significant numbers, but many students with family backgrounds in Asia and a majority from Latino heritage and origin. Photos suggest that the school continues also to have a significant Muslim population whose presence is not reflected in demographic data.

The arguments for dropping or retaining the school’s name are heated. Two of the most common reasons cited for keeping Stuart’s name on the school are that we cannot change history and the costs associated with the change.

It is true that we cannot change the past. But place, institutional, and personal names do change. Think about the name of the place where you live. Is the word for your city or neighborhood indigenous? The city where I work now does have an Ojibwe name that reflects the prevalence of Anishinaabemowin speakers in this area in the 19^th century. But would the earlier Woodland people who built Wisconsin’s effigy mounds have recognized “Milwaukee” as a meaningful name? The airport now named after Ronald Reagan replaced ones named for Herbert Hoover and the place named for George Washington. In the United States, women who marry and divorce routinely change their names, updating their identities to reflect changes in their personal histories. In all of these cases, people have chosen to update names, not to deny history but to reflect what is most meaningful to them in the present.

We do not have to be ruled by decisions made in the past. J.E.B. Stuart High School was named in 1959, as the “massive resistance” strategy came peaked in Virginia. Massive resistance was a political response to the 1954 Supreme Court Brown v. Board decision ordering racial desegregation of public schools. Rather than comply, whites in Virginia shut down public schools. White children could attend private academies. Black families made the wrenching decision to send their children to other states in order to get their educations. The story was different in Northern Virginia, where the postwar population had boomed. In contrast to the rest of the state, the Fairfax County School Board opened new schools. But no one could mistake the insult to African Americans intended by choosing to name a school after a Confederate hero. Black students might get a public education at J.E.B. Stuart High School, but for years afterwards they also carried on their résumés the name of a man who died for the principle that states could decide whether their ancestors were property or were included in the fundamental American value of liberty. The choice of school name was probably also a thumb in the eye of thousands of white “carpetbaggers” who had come south to work in the booming postwar federal government.

The second reason given against the name change is the cost, which would allegedly eat up funds better spent counteracting cuts to important school programs. The Fairfax County School Board website lists $678,000 in projected costs associated with new signage, in-school branding, athletic and band uniforms, and logo-bearing items. This argument is more compelling but still not persuasive. As the site also notes, items such as uniforms normally wear out and are replaced on a regular basis, and other items fall under the purview of the work of the booster club. The difficulty is coming up with all that money at once rather than amortizing it over multiple budget years. Replacing signage is a one-time cost that could potentially be covered by engaging the community and alumni in fundraising. Further, development professionals know how to turn a crisis into a fundraising opportunity. The school district could take advantage of the heightened interest of alumni in this issue to send out an appeal for the funds needed for special education, parental support, and smaller class sizes to raise private money.

            The naming of local institutions like schools, parks, and streets reflects local values. It is up to the Fairfax County School board to decide what it values more right now: retaining a local heritage name that branded the school as one where black students were second-class citizens or finding a new, less divisive name that students and alumni can carry with pride and help them want to give back to the school for generations to come.