Columbia High School

Columbia High School (CHS) is a four-year public high school located in Lake City, Florida. The school's mascot is the Fighting Tigers and the colors are purple and gold. History The school was founded in 1888. The 1921 building, which was replaced in 1957 by a new building on Duval street, is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1935 the school was accused of cheating in football by playing a 21-year-old student who lived outside the county. A judge ordered them to be suspended from the Athletic Association and cancelled the rest of their games. Censorship In 1986, despite opposition from the ACLU, the school district banned Chaucer's The Miller's Tale and Aristophanes Lysistrata from the school because of sexual content. This decision was ultimately upheld by the courts in 1989 in the case Virgil v. School Board of Columbia County. A 1993 attempt to ban Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck was defeated due to the intervention of a local librarian. Integration Prior to 1969, Columbia was for White students only. In 1969, when the schools were forced to integrate by federal courts, students from the all-Black Fort White High School were sent to Columbia High School, but the district did not fully integrate Columbia at that time and defied a federal court order to do so in January, 1970. The court allowed them to delay until February. Students from Fort White continued to attend Columbia for over 30 years, when a new Fort White High School was built. In 1979, a Black student was accused of improper behavior towards a White female. The Black student was suspended, which led to a boycott of the school by Black students, and McKinley Jeffers, a Black assistant principal was fired.