Oscar-Winning Alumni Push for Change of Confederate Name of High School

Oscar-winning actress Julianne Moore, who attended Fairfax County’s J.E.B. Stuart High School in 1975-1977, and Oscar-winning producer Bruce Cohen, a 1979 grad, have launched a renewed effort to rename their high school in Fairfax County, Va.

The two were contacted by an alumni group, who were contacted by students.

They want to get rid of the name of the school because J.E.B. Stuart High is name for a Confederate general. The school is located in the Falls Church area of Fairfax County, a suburb in Northern Virginia in the Washington, D.C. metro area.

Some graduates of J.E.B. Stuart High had started a petition earlier to change the name. Now Moore and Cohen have joined the cause, launching a new campaign to change the name two weeks ago, that now has about 23,000 supporters. They’re asking the Fairfax County School Board to change the name.

Here’s what Moore and Cohen have to say, on their petition page, on change.org:

“We have been friends since 8th grade in Fairfax County, Virginia, and attended J.E.B. Stuart High School. When our school was founded in 1959, it was named after Stuart, a Confederate General, to protest the 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Education ruling that ended the segregation of public schools.

Today, this school is attended by a diverse group of students who should not have to attend a school that bears the name of a man who fought to keep African Americans enslaved. So we’re calling on the Fairfax County School Board to rename it Thurgood Marshall High School. Not only was Marshall the first African American Supreme Court Justice and a civil rights leader, he was our neighbor and a member of our community.”

“Not only was Marshall the first African-American Supreme Court justice and a civil rights leader, he was our neighbor and a member of our community,” the petition reads.

The school is located in the Falls Church area of the county. Marshall lived nearby, in the Lake Barcroft area in Fairfax County, until he died in 1993. He was an associate justice on the Supreme Court serving from October 1967 until October 1991. He was the court’s first African American justice.

Before becoming a judge, Marshall was a lawyer who was best known for his high success rate in arguing before the Supreme Court and for the victory in Brown v. Board of Education that led to the eventual end of segregation in the U.S. school system.

When Moore attended J.E.B. Stuart, fellow students knew her as Julie Smith; she later changed her name because there was already another actress with that name, she has said.

“I became serious with drama at J.E.B. Stuart. My first play was ’Sleeping Beauty,’” she told The Washington Post in an interview 15 years ago. “I played Sleeping Beauty. It was the year I got contact lenses, so it was a big one for me.”

Moore won the Best Actress Oscar this year, as well as the Golden Globe and the SAG Award, for “Still Alice.” She earned four additional Oscar nominations for Best Actress in “The End of the Affair” and “Far From Heaven” and Best Supporting Actress in “Boogie Nights” and “The Hours.”

Cohen won the Best Picture Oscar for producing “American Beauty” in 1999. He earned additional Best Picture nominations for “Milk” (2008) and “Silver Linings Playbook” (2012). He was nominated for an Emmy for producing the 83rd Annual Academy Awards in 2010. Bruce has always been passionate about promoting fairness and equality.

PHOTOS: Julianne Moore Wikipedia photo; Bruce Cohen from CAA Speakers; Thurgood Marshall/White House photo; seal of J.E.B. Stuart High School, Fairfax County Public Schools