A judge has filed a lawsuit against the University of California (UC) to prevent it from renaming its law school to include the name of a man accused of orchestrating the genocide of Native Americans, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Descendants of Theranus Hastings filed a $1.7 billion lawsuit against the University of California in October 2022 after the school decided to change the Hastings School of Law to the University of California, San Francisco. according to To the chronicle. The school had asked for the changes after the military was allegedly ordered to kill thousands of Native Americans in the 1860s, when it was named, but Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer ruled Tuesday. The court ruled in favor of an 1878 law that made the school “forever known” as Hastings Law School. It is not a binding contract and can be appealed or amended. (Related: Elite universities reverse course, return to mandatory standardized testing)

According to the Chronicle, Ulmer rejected another argument that the name change violates the California Constitution, which requires the university to be “free from any political or sectarian influence.”

The University of California, Hastings begins the new year with a new name. We are now UC Law San Francisco!

Please see here for the detail: https://t.co/wU8MhnCWwQ pic.twitter.com/555zUJtojX

— University of California, San Francisco School of Law (@uclaw_sf) January 1, 2023

The law school's name change will officially take place on January 1, 2023, and will include “providing legal assistance to California tribes through the opening of the Indigenous Law Center and Law School Fellowships,” as well as “restorative justice initiatives.” became an integral part of the effort.

Schools across the country are being renamed due to links to slavery and other issues.

In January 2021, the San Francisco Board of Education approved name changes for 44 public schools. That included a school named after the late California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who was accused of replacing a Confederate flag that was vandalized in 1986. Illinois public schools have removed Thomas Jefferson's name. Due to his ties to slavery, he will be executed in May 2021.

The University of California Law San Francisco did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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