The Montgomery County Board of Education is scheduled to consider a proposal to change the names of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Sidney Lanier high schools Tuesday night.
The three schools, which all have a majority Black student enrollment, are named after people associated with the Confederacy.
Board members discussed the idea of changing the names at a meeting in June.
The Alabama Legislature passed a law in 2017 restricting the renaming of public schools named after people, groups, events, movements, or military services. It’s the same law that blocks removal of statues and monuments in place 40 years or more -- the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act.
Under that law, changing the name of a memorial public school that’s at least 20 years old would require a waiver by the Committee on Alabama Monument Protection. The three schools are 50 years old and older.
The committee met in December, which was only its second meeting. At that time it had received no requests for waivers.
Some Lee graduates started a campaign to change the school’s name during the protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.
In a press release today, Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund Chief of State Lecia Brooks urged the Montgomery County school board to approve the changes.
“We join concerned students, alumni and other members of the Montgomery community in calling on the Montgomery County Board of Education to make the right decision by voting to remove any and all names and symbols associated with the Confederacy, which celebrates a brutal and inhumane past,” Brooks said.
The statue of General Robert E. Lee in front of the school was toppled during protests in June. School officials said they placed it in storage. Four people initially faced felony criminal mischief charges for bringing down the statue. A judge dismissed the charges at the request of Montgomery District Attorney Daryl Bailey, who said there were mistakes in the affidavits and/or warrants that prevented prosecution.
Bailey said then he was not making a judgment on whether the charges were appropriate and stood ready to help correct the mistakes if the police department and Montgomery Public Schools and the police department still wanted to pursue charges.
The cities of Birmingham and Mobile face $25,000 fines under the Memorial Preservation Act for removing Confederate monuments in June. The Madison County Commission voted in June to seek permission to remove the Confederate statue at the courthouse in Huntsville.