U.S. Supreme Court Ends Hastings Descendants’ Challenge to UC Law San Francisco’s Name

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, October 19, 2026, declined to hear an appeal from descendants of Serranus Clinton Hastings and a group of alumni who sued California over the renaming of the law school at 200 McAllister Street. The one-sentence order, with no noted dissents, leaves the California court rulings in place. The school keeps the name it has used since 2023: University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, shortened to UC Law SF.

What the Case Was About

Hastings, California’s first chief justice and later its attorney general, gave the state $100,000 in 1878 to found the school. The state law that created it said the college would “forever” carry his name. In the case, Hastings College Conservation Committee v. State of California (No. 25-1231), six of his descendants and a group of alumni argued that the 1878 law was a binding contract the Legislature could not undo. They asked for the original gift back with interest.

California courts ruled against them at every step. A San Francisco Superior Court judge dismissed the suit in 2024. The First District Court of Appeal held that the 1878 law was an ordinary statute that a later Legislature was free to repeal, and the California Supreme Court declined to review that decision early this year. The petitioners then went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ended the case Monday. Gregory Michael of Dhillon Law Group, who represented the petitioners, argued the case was about constitutional limits on state power. A spokesperson for the school, Bill Kisliuk, said officials welcomed the end of the case.

Why the Name Changed

In 2017, after a law professor’s newspaper op-ed laid out Hastings’ history, the school opened a review of its namesake. That review, and a 2021 New York Times investigation, documented his role in organizing and paying for state-sponsored militia expeditions against Native Californians, including the Yuki people of Round Valley in Mendocino County. The killings and land seizures that followed added to his fortune.

Assembly Bill 1936, carried by Assemblymember James Ramos and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September 2022, removed the Hastings name effective in 2023. The law also set out restorative steps with the Round Valley Indian Tribes, including scholarships for tribal members and pro bono legal help for tribal courts. The school runs an Indigenous Law Center.

The Campus

UC Law SF’s main building stands at 200 McAllister Street at Hyde Street, on the edge of the Civic Center and the Tenderloin, about a block from the Asian Art Museum and a short walk from City Hall. Its alumni include former Vice President Kamala Harris and former San Francisco mayor and Assembly speaker Willie Brown. The Civic Center BART and Muni Metro station on Market Street is about two blocks south. For places to eat nearby, see our Tenderloin food map and our guide to downtown San Francisco.

Sources: ABA Journal, October 20, 2026; SFist, October 19, 2026, citing the San Francisco Chronicle; Hoodline; California Courts Newsroom.

Photo: Coolcaesar, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. The 200 McAllister Street entrance in 2006, under the school’s former name.