A judge threw out a lawsuit that sought to block the University of California (UC) from renaming a law school that included the name of man who allegedly orchestrated the massacre of Native Americans, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.
Descendants of Serranus Hastings filed a $1.7 billion lawsuit against UC in October 2022 after the school decided to change the Hastings College of Law to the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, according to the Chronicle. The school sought the change after its namesake was allegedly ordered troops to kill thousands of Native Americans in the 1860s, and Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer ruled Tuesday that the 1878 law noting the school “shall forever be known” as the Hastings College of Law was not a binding contract and could be appealed or amended. (RELATED: Elite University Reverses Course, Goes Back To Requiring Standardized Tests)
Ulmer rejected a separate claim that the renaming violated the California Constitution, which requires the university to remain “free of all political or sectarian influence,” according to the Chronicle.
UC Hastings is ringing in the new year with a new name! We are now UC Law San Francisco!
Read More Here: https://t.co/wU8MhnCWwQ pic.twitter.com/555zUJtojX
— UC Law San Francisco (@uclaw_sf) January 1, 2023
The name change of the law school became official on January 1, 2023, and was “an integral part of restorative justice efforts” alongside the opening of “an Indigenous Law Center and providing legal assistance to California tribes through law school fellowships.”
Schools across the country have been renamed due to associations with slavery and other issues.
San Francisco’s Board of Education in January 2021 approved the renaming of 44 public schools, including one named after the late Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who was accused of replacing a vandalized confederate flag in 1986. A public school in Illinois dropped Thomas Jefferson’s name in May 2021 due to his ties to slavery.
“The College changed its name because of the actions of Serranus Hastings against Native Americans around 20 years before he founded our school in 1878. We are pleased that the court has affirmed our right to do so; and we are grateful to our attorneys at Willkie, Farr & Gallagher for their excellent representation of our case,” John DiPaolo, general counsel and secretary for the UC College of the Law, San Francisco, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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