San Rafael School District Changes Name Tied to Confederacy

A school district in San Rafael will no longer have a name with links to the Confederacy.

The Board of Trustees voted last week to rename the Dixie School District to the Miller Creek Elementary School District. Critics have pointed out the ties between the name of the 155-year-old district to the Confederacy and slavery.

The trustees voted 3-1 with one abstention, rejecting three other options: Laurel Creek, Creekside or Kenne school district.

Trustees also voted 4-1 to rename the district’s only elementary school, from Dixie to Lucas Valley Elementary.

The name-change issue pitted parents against each other for months and generated heated debate in San Rafael, an overwhelmingly white city of 59,000 people. Some insisted the Dixie name was racially insensitive, while others complained the proposed change was political correctness run amok.

The board of trustees in February voted to stick with Dixie before eventually approving a name change in April. Trustees said at the time they would change both the name of the San Francisco Bay Area district and the name of its elementary school by Aug. 22, when classes resume.

The cost of the name change, such as replacing signs, was estimated at nearly $40,000, but the Marin Community Foundation pledged to cover it.

Dixie is a nickname for the southern U.S. states that formed the pro-slavery Confederacy in 1860, sparking the Civil War. The legacy of the Confederacy prompts political, legal and cultural conflicts to this day.

Those who supported changing the name said the district was named Dixie by James Miller, the school founder, on a dare by Confederate sympathizers. Those who opposed the change said the school system was named for Mary Dixie, a Miwok Indian woman who Miller knew in the 1840s.