In July, the board of directors at UC-Hastings College of the Law voted to change the school’s name to College of the Law, San Francisco.
The school’s namesake Serranus Hastings, was the first chief justice of California and was linked to the killing of Native Americans in the 1850s.
Now his descendants are suing over the name change.
Reuters reports:
UC Hastings law school sued by namesake’s heirs over name changeA group of alumni from the University of California Hastings College of the Law and six descendants of its namesake Serranus Hastings sued the state and school officials Tuesday to stop them from dropping the Hastings name.Hastings was a California Supreme Court justice and founded the law school in 1878, but historians have said he also orchestrated killings of Native Americans in order to remove them from ranch land he purchased in Northern California.California Governor Gavin Newsom on Sept. 30 signed a bill authorizing changing the school’s name to the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, after years of debate over Hastings’ legacy.Tuesday’s lawsuit disputes Hastings’ role in any killings, calling the controversy the work of “modern-day cancel-culturalists” relying on “poorly sourced opinion pieces.”“Although there is no known evidence that S.C. Hastings desired, requested, or knowingly encouraged any atrocities against Native Americans, the accusations against S.C. Hastings soon snowballed,” the San Francisco state court complaint said.
Bradford Betz of FOX News has more on this, including some backstory on conditions that were put in place when the school was founded:
The lawsuit disputes AB 1936’s portrayal of Hastings, saying there is no direct evidence of him committing atrocities against Native Americans.”Hastings, a lifelong Democrat, was a giant in California history, our first California Chief Justice, and like many founding figures, is the latest victim of activists rewriting history to fit a contemporary agenda, with scant factual basis, no due process, and the ends justifying the means,” said Harmeet K. Dhillon, CEO of the Center for American Liberty, in a statement.”In his time, Hastings was a civil rights leader and neither he, nor his descendants or the graduates of this fine institution, deserve the smear job orchestrated by politicians for their own purposes,” the statement continued.The lawsuit alleges that the name change breaches an agreement between the State of California and Hastings, when he gave it $100,000 in gold to establish the school. Per the agreement, Hastings would serve as its inaugural dean, an heir or representative would always hold a seat on the school’s board of directors, and it would forever be called the “Hastings College of the Law,” according to the lawsuit.
As I have noted repeatedly, no school should have to change its name as long as Yale University is still named for Elihu Yale, who was actively involved in the slave trade.
Yale will never change its name because it’s a billion dollar brand and because students want to say they go to Yale, not Ivy League University of Connecticut.
As long as Yale doesn’t have to change its name, neither should any other school.
Featured image via YouTube.
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