Law Schools

You're Named After Who? This Top Law School Will Have To Fight For Its New Name

The things people go to court over.

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gavel scalesA San Francisco law school received bad news after trying to circumvent some legal trouble. University of California College of the Law, San Francisco — formerly known as UC Hastings — decided to change its name as soon as the ink dried on AB 1936. The law appeared to protect the school’s authority to change its name, a decision prompted by the realization that it was less than ideal that Serranus Hastings, the school’s former namesake, had a penchant for profiting off of native genocide.

You’d think decent inheritors of that family name would understand why a school would want to end associations with a name that bloody, but that is not the case before us. They are suing to force the school to keep the Hastings name, and they recently got a step closer toward that end. From Reuters:

Descendants of Serranus Hastings suing over the name change of the former University of California Hastings College of the Law cleared a hurdle on Monday when a California appeals court tossed a bid brought by school officials who tried to block the lawsuit.

The California appeals court affirmed the dismissal of a motion brought by law school officials who are seeking to end litigation over the school’s name. Their anti-SLAPP motion argued that the name change was a protected public activity.

The decision by the California Court of Appeal for the First District in San Francisco allows the case to proceed at the trial court level.

While this isn’t an immediate win for the Hastings family, it is definitely an important step toward a sweep. As the case progresses, I hope that Harmeet Dhillon’s Twitter presence will be able to endure the storm.

For the rest of us concerned with history and attempts to monumentalize individuals, the ultimate outcome of the case could have some serious spillover. I don’t know if you know this, but there are a LOT of prestigious institutions named after folks history has not looked too kindly on in retrospect — Cecil Rhodes and Rhodes scholars, Hastings’ cohort Leland Stanford and Stanford college, the list goes on. The staying power of many names will surely be litigated, and this case will be an interesting taste of winds to come.

Former ‘Hastings’ Law School Loses Appeal To Block Suit Over Name Change [Reuters]

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Earlier: Is Genocide A Good Enough Reason For These Law Schools To Change Their Names?
Top Law School Has A Brand New Name
Descendants Of Serranus Hastings Sue To Keep Name Of Genocider On Law School

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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