UC Beats Suit Over SF Law School Name Change

A San Francisco judge tossed all claims in a lawsuit challenging the name change of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law to the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. The lawsuit contended the name change was illegal because a nearly 150-year-old state act creating the law school had also stipulated the school would forever be known as Hastings, after the man who founded the college. "The act that created the law school is a statute, not a contract," said Judge Richard B. Ulmer Jr. in his Tuesday ruling. "The act 'authorized' S.C. Hastings to found the law college. The act does not include any covenanting language; the act is not couched in the terms of a contract." In dismissing the case, Judge Ulmer did not provide leave to amend the lawsuit. Attorneys for the plaintiffs said they will appeal the ruling.   "Although we are disappointed by yesterday's ruling, we remain undeterred in our pursuit of justice for the family of Serranus Hastings, and we look forward to appealing the court's ruling," attorney Gregory Michael told Law360 in an email. A group of school alumni and Hastings descendants calling themselves the Hastings College Conservation Committee filed the lawsuit in October 2022 upon news that the San Francisco law school's name would change, dropping the Hastings name, in January 2023. They argued the new name would violate an agreement enshrined in state law that the college would always bear the Hastings name after Serranus Clinton Hastings gave the state $100,000 in gold in 1878 to establish the law school and served as its inaugural dean. Hastings was also a former state Supreme Court justice. The law school initiated the name change as a way to distance itself from Hastings after commissioning a report that uncovered evidence that he orchestrated the killings of hundreds of Native Americans of the Yuki tribe in the late 1850s to remove them from ranchland he had purchased in what is now Mendocino County in Northern California. Both houses of the California Legislature unanimously approved the law school's name change in August 2022 and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill, AB 1936, the following month. The suit also sought to keep the hereditary board seat given to the Hastings family by the 1878 act establishing the school. The bill authorizing the name change also eliminated the hereditary seat. However, Judge Ulmer dismissed that part of the lawsuit as well, saying the case "does not present the situation where the Legislature is attempting to dictate university policy." Attorney Eduardo Santacana of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, representing the law school's dean and board of directors, said the judge made the proper ruling. "We are pleased the court agreed with our fundamental argument, which rejects the notion that the California Legislature made a contract with Hastings when it agreed to name the law school for him and provide for a board seat in his honor," Santacana told Law360 in an email. "The Legislature did not and cannot contract away its fundamental powers to private parties, because to do so would be to take the administration of public matters out of the hands of the electorate and put them in the hands of individuals who can afford it." Among the famous graduates of the law school are former San Francisco Mayors Willie Brown and George Moscone and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. The plaintiffs are represented by Harmeet Dhillon and Karin M. Sweigart of Dhillon Law Group and Gregory R. Michael and Dorothy C. Yamamoto of Michael Yamamoto LLP. The law school's dean and board of directors are represented by Eduardo E. Santacana, Benedict Y. Hur and Joshua D. Anderson of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. The state of California is represented by Rob Bonita, Lisa Chao and Kara Siegel of the state attorney general's office. The case is Hasting College Conservation Committee v. State of California, case number 22-602149, in San Francisco Superior Court.