Judge sides with opponents of school renaming in San Francisco

A judge has sided with opponents of the renaming of 44 San Francisco schools in a lawsuit that has drawn Harvard Law School constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe to help represent them.

San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Ethan P. Schulman, in a Thursday decision, ordered the school board to rescind its resolution ordering 44 city schools renamed.

The school board vote in January said the schools, named after historical figures or locations, have connections to slavery, racism or oppression.

The school monikers to be changed include those named after President George Washington, President Abraham Lincoln, the Presidio, and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, a former San Francisco mayor.

Schulman, however, ordered the board to revoke the resolution and dissolve a school renaming committee or show cause why it has not done so by May 6. Abraham Lincoln High School of San Francisco et al. v. San Francisco Board of Education et al., CPF-21-517410 (S.F. County Sup. Ct, filed March 18, 2021).

School district spokeswoman Laura Dudnick said in an email Friday, "There are no plans to reconvene the School Names Advisory Committee and their work prior to the court's hearing of this matter."

Dudnick emphasized that Schulman's order to show cause is not a decision on the merits of the case, suggesting the board would file a response before the scheduled May hearing.

The petition on behalf of school alumni organizations and several individual plaintiffs said the board violated the Brown Act by failing to give adequate notice of the possibility it would order schools to be renamed at the January meeting.

The item on the agenda only discussed the potential renaming of schools, according to San Francisco attorney Paul D. Scott, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit also asserts that the reputations of school alumni will be damaged if the schools' names are changed.

Tribe, who attended Lincoln High School, said the resolution has the effect of "branding alumni of schools as racist" and said it was "absurd" to brand President Abraham Lincoln as a racist.

"To say Abraham Lincoln, we will just revile him from now on, is just bogus," Tribe added in a phone interview Friday.

The board's action not only violates the state Brown Act but also the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, he said.

Tribe conceded the claim was "an unusual application of the Brown Act" and said the resolution would have been "silly but not illegal" if adequate notice had been given.

The board first established a committee in 2018 to consider the possibility of renaming schools. Tribe faulted the committee for failing to consult with historians and derided the panel, led by a campaign manager of one of the school board members, as "political hacks."

School board president Gabriela Lopez acknowledged mistakes in the process in an opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, and said there will be a pause while schools reopen from the COVID-19 virus first.

But the lawsuit states schools are still scheduled to be renamed.