What’s in a name? At UC College of the Law, it won’t be ‘Hastings’ if school drops moniker

The University of California Hastings College of the Law’s Board of Directors has voted unanimously to remove Hastings from the law school’s name and replace it with San Francisco because of its founder’s genocidal acts against Native Americans in the 1850s.

The name change for the school, founded in 1878 by former California Supreme Court chief justice and state attorney general Serranus Hastings, will require approval by the state Legislature and signature by Gov. Gavin Newsom to become the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, or UC Law SF for short. The change could come as soon as this January.