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SF Chronicle: Hastings Descendants Dispute Law School Name Is Racist. They Want The Name Kept — or a $1.7B Payout

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Days after Gov. Gavin Newson signed a bill to reverse an 1878 law requiring that UC Hastings College of the Law forever keep its founder’s name — or the state must repay descendants $100,000, plus interest — six family members sued on Tuesday to get their money back.

If California persists in removing Hastings’ name from the law school on Jan. 1, the interest rate would be an annual 7%, family and supporters said Tuesday at a press conference outside San Francisco Superior Court.

... “I was shocked that they filed it,” said Assembly Member Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, who co-authored AB1936, which will change the school’s name to UC College of the Law, San Francisco next year. Newsom signed it into law on Sept. 23.

Ting said he heard no family objections during the six months of hearings about AB1936. The bill also requires that the school formally apologize to tribes, provides for academic support for Indigenous students who want to study law and pays for dozens of “restorative justice” programs.