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Home – Higher Education News – What’s in a Name? Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Law School Name Change

What’s in a Name? Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Law School Name Change

Zack Smith | Harrison Lucas

A University of California law school changed its name because of concerns about its namesake’s legacy.

The Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging the name change.

Legal, practical, and ethical questions remain.

What’s a name worth? A lot, according to a case the U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to hear.

In 1878, more than 145 years before this dispute, California’s first chief justice, Serranus Clinton Hastings—who made a small fortune from various real estate ventures—agreed to fund the establishment of a new law school in San Francisco. He did so in exchange for the law school bearing his name and certain guarantees that his descendants would always have a seat on the board and retain a say in the law school’s operations.

The California State Legislature agreed to this proposal and passed legislation establishing the school under these conditions. The legislation also provided that should the state fail to pay the directors of the law school, including Hastings’s heir or representative, “seven per cent per annum … or should the College cease to exist, then the State … shall pay to the said S.C. Hastings, his heirs or legal representatives, the said sum of one hundred ($100,000) thousand dollars [Hastings’s original contribution] and all unexpended accumulated interest.”

Things continued on under this agreement until 2017, when the College........

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