SAN FRANCISCO, California — The University of California College of the Law at San Francisco can retain its new name, after the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge by descendants of its former namesake, Serranus C. Hastings, the ABA Journal reported on October 20, citing San Francisco Chronicle coverage. The San Francisco Focal reported the same day that the court declined to hear the lawsuit in a one-sentence order with no dissents noted.

The San Francisco school was founded 148 years ago under an 1878 state law that declared it "shall forever be known" as Hastings College of the Law. Hastings, a former California Supreme Court chief justice and state attorney general, committed $100,000 to found the school, whose alumni include former Vice President Kamala Harris and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, according to the ABA Journal.

The state legislature passed a law effective in 2023 changing the name, after evidence emerged in the last decade that Hastings sent a militia against Native Americans in Mendocino County in the 1860s, where thousands were killed, according to the reporting. Six of Hastings' descendants, along with alumni, sued the state for allegedly violating a binding contract and seeking return of the $100,000 plus interest.

California courts ruled that the 1878 law was not a contract but a law that could be repealed, and a state appeals court agreed; the California Supreme Court let those rulings stand. The descendants' lawyer, Gregory Michael, disputed the historical account in a filing reported by the Focal, saying Hastings sought militia protection for livestock and that troops committed atrocities independently, and arguing the state should honour the original naming language regardless of Hastings' past.

Sources: ABA Journal, October 20, 2026; San Francisco Chronicle coverage via ABA Journal / MSN; San Francisco Focal, October 20, 2026.