John Matthews and Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
FAIRFAX, VA — (WMAL) After more than a year of back-and-forth arguments, we’ll find out today whether the name of a Confederate Civil War general will be removed from a Fairfax County school.
The Fairfax County School Board will vote whether to change the name of J.E.B. Stuart HS no later than the start of the 2019 school year.
If the change is approved, school staff would start the renaming process this fall and would consider naming it Stuart High School, after famed presidential portait artist Gilbert Stuart. That change would allow the school to keep the same last name and save money.
A group of petitioners led by alumni actress Julianne Moore and producer Bruce Cohen think the school should be named after Alice Jackson Stuart, the first black woman to apply for graduate school studies at the University of Virginia.
The school board failed to reach a real consensus during a meeting last week.
Board member Elizabeth Schultz said existing policy indicates there needs to be a compelling need to change the name. She argued if the compelling need is a moral issue, then they need to change the names of all other buildings in the county named after slaveholders, plantations and other trappings of the deep south that are now considered taboo.
Another member, Megan McLaughlin, noted that the board is dealing with a mini Civil War in the high school. Some people say the name is hurtful and offensive and needs to change, while others want to respect history.
McLaughlin says changing Jeb Stuart High School’s name but not Robert E. Lee High School’s name would be hypocritical, and she warned that if the board decides it doesn’t want schools named after confederates in 2017, then it better be prepared to change more than one school’s name.
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