BERKELEY, Calif. – At an emotionally charged public hearing here last night, the district school board reject a proposal to remove a reference to the country’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, from the name of a local elementary school because the 18th-century leader owned slaves.

“A lot of this is really about emotion,” board member Joaquin Rivera said as he explained his plan to vote against the name change. “It seems to me that we’re putting on trial a dead man who is not here to defend himself.”

One of the sharpest attacks on the founder came from a former principal at Jefferson, Jan Goodman. She accused Jefferson of having repeatedly “raped” his female slaves.

“This to me invalidates any achievements he may have done,” Ms. Goodman said. “To keep the name of Thomas Jefferson is not only to repeat the mistakes of the past but to honor them.”

Backers of the name change far outnumbered opponents among the speakers at last night’s feisty session in this bastion of the American left. The five-member school board voted 3-2 against after an hour and a half of public comments. Proponents sang “We Shall Overcome” after the vote.

Several proponents of the change noted that Berkeley has long been at the forefront of civil rights issues. The city was the first in the nation to voluntarily desegregate its public schools, residents noted.

One critic of the name change, Barbara Wittstock, said that if Jefferson’s name was removed from the school, teachers might soon begin to shy away from teaching about his most famous writing, the Declaration of Independence.

“It’s ridiculous to take what is a standard for today and apply it on heroes and fathers of our country in the past,” said Ms. Wittstock, 73.

In a referendum on the issue several weeks ago, students and staff at the school voted in favor of the name change by a wide margin. Students backed the change by a vote of 161-111. Staff members supported it 11-5. Parents and guardians also endorsed the move, but by a much narrower vote of 67-61.

The school community settled on “Sequoia” as a proposed new name for the school, after the species of tree. But some critics said even that name change had problems: Under Chief Sequoia’s leadership in the early 19th century, the Cherokee nation owned more than 1,500 black slaves.

Debate over the name change has simmered for more than two years.

The consultation with the students, staff, and parents was required by board policy. Some have questioned the sense of having elementary school students, some of whom are just five years old, vote on such a matter.

At last night’s hearing, supporters of the name change suggested that the board should accede to the will of the school community. A real estate broker whose daughter attends the school in question, Christina Carter, said the board would be subverting democracy if it voted against the name change.

“For the vote not to be honored and to go back later and say it was for nothing, what is that teaching our students? What is that teaching our daughter about the whole vote process?” said Ms. Carter, 33.

A Berkeley city employee who has one child leaving the school and another entering, Kevin Atkinson, read aloud from the preamble to the Declaration of Independence before declaring that Jefferson would support the democratic process.

“Thomas Jefferson would be proud,” Mr. Atkinson, 37, said.

Others said that changing the name would set a standard that virtually no historical figure could achieve. “If we only name things after perfect people, we won’t have anything named after people,” said Bruce Poropat, 53, a technical writer.

Speakers on both sides of the issue said they were more concerned about the decaying condition of the school building, or about an achievement gap between white and minority achievement students at the school.