The years-long campaign to put Serranus Hastings’s name back on San Francisco’s oldest law school is finally, mercifully over. On Monday, the Supreme Court denied review in Hastings College Conservation Committee v. State of California in a one-sentence order with no noted dissents, which means the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco will stay UC Law SF.
Back in February, when the California Supreme Court passed on the case, we promised to cover it when the court of last resort told the family to kick rocks.
Well, rocks have been kicked.
The school didn’t drop Hastings’s name on a whim. California’s first chief justice financed Indian-hunting expeditions against the Yuki people in the 1850s, which is to say he paid to have human beings killed, and he got richer for it. That history kicked off a years-long restorative justice process, the board voted to ditch the name, the Legislature passed AB 1936, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it, and the school became UC Law SF on January 1, 2023.
That’s when six Hastings descendants and a handful of alumni sued to keep the name of a genocider on their LinkedIn profiles. Their theory: an 1878 statute said the school would “forever” be known as Hastings College of the Law, so it was a binding contract, and breaking it meant the state owed back the original $100,000 gift plus interest, a tidy sum the family pegged at $1.7 billion. The suit survived an early bid to kill it, and that was about the last good news the plaintiffs got. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer tossed it in 2024, ruling the 1878 law was an ordinary statute the legislature was free to repeal. A unanimous panel of the First District Court of Appeal affirmed last October. The California Supreme Court declined review in January, and now SCOTUS has done the same.
The descendants’ lawyer, Gregory Michael, said the decision was disappointing. “This litigation sought to vindicate fundamental constitutional principles and preserve the legacy of Judge Hastings against legislative action we believe exceeded constitutional limits,” he said.
Lost in the litigation is the part of AB 1936 that does something pretty important: scholarships for members of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, pro bono support for tribal courts, and an Indigenous Law Center at the school.
Chancellor and Dean David Faigman said the school is “pleased to see this chapter behind us.” Faigman opened the inquiry into Hastings’s legacy back in 2017, steps down in June 2027, which means he gets to leave with the name question settled.
Earlier: UC Law San Francisco Scores Another Name Change Win
Hastings Family Money Grab Thwarted By California Judge
You’re Named After Who? This Top Law School Will Have To Fight For Its New Name
Top Law School Has A Brand New Name
Descendants Of Serranus Hastings Sue To Keep Name Of Genocider On Law School
Law School Would Really Like To Be Rid Of Genocider’s Name
Is Genocide A Good Enough Reason For These Law Schools To Change Their Names?
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
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