The Virginia NAACP's lawsuit against the Shenandoah County School Board for reinstating Confederate names on two schools is set to go to trial next week. In a virtual hearing on Monday, the parties continued arguments over who can use what pieces of evidence. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
On December 11th, a bench trial will begin in the Harrisonburg federal courthouse over whether the reinstatement of the names Stonewall Jackson High and Ashby Lee Elementary on two schools in Quicksburg was intended to harm or had the effect of harming Black students. Senior U.S. District Judge Michael F. Urbanski already ruled that this violated their First Amendment rights.
As WMRA previously reported, both parties have filed motions to limit which expert witnesses can testify, and to what. Urbanski has not yet ruled on those motions.
In a pretrial conference on Monday, the parties argued about how the school board members have used legislative privilege – a legal doctrine that protects legislators from being forced to testify about their motivations for votes. When they were being deposed by the NAACP's lawyers, school board members invoked this privilege so they could refuse to explain the reasons why they voted to reinstate the Confederate names. But the defense still wants to present evidence – such as a community survey about the names – that Urbanski said would suggest "legitimate nondiscriminatory reasons."
The plaintiffs characterized this in court documents as inappropriately using the privilege as both a "sword and shield."
Defense attorney John Fitzgerald said legislative privilege exists so that elected officials can make decisions without being "hauled into court later on to explain why they're not racist." He argued the judge could still consider evidence such as the survey in determining whether the school board had discriminatory intent.
Urbanski responded that the defense "made a strategic choice in this case … to not answer questions as to the reasons for their decision," and that this seemed like an attempt to "back door the reasons." He said he'd issue a written ruling on the matter later this week.
