UC Hastings College of the Law to rename school after reviewing founder's role in mass killings of Y

[Demovictory9]

UC Hastings College of the Law to rename school after reviewing founder’s role in mass killings of Yuki Indians

The UC Hastings College of the Law, California’s first law school, will soon no longer bear the name of its founder, Serranus Clinton Hastings, whose legacy includes profiting off the killings and displacement of Native Americans in Northern California.

The school’s board of directors voted Tuesday to change the college’s name after years of research and input from Yuki tribal members, whose ancestors were targeted by Hastings. The decision came after the school’s dean and chancellor, David Faigman, commissioned the Hastings Legacy Review Committee to provide a report and recommendations following an op-ed piece by a former adjunct professor that detailed Hasting’s role in the killing of Native Americans during the 1850s and ’60s.

In an interview Friday, Faigman said the report, which was delivered to the board of directors on Sept. 11, 2020, “told a very disturbing and horrific story of Hastings promoting genocide to his own benefit.” It found that Hastings, who came to California during the Gold Rush era, paid for and promoted expeditions in the Eden and Round Valleys of Northern California that resulted in the deaths and displacement of hundreds of Yuki Indians, whose land he later took for himself. Hastings later donated $100,000 in gold coins to the state to establish the law school in San Francisco.

“The effects of Serranus Hastings’ crimes against humanity echo in the conditions prevailing today for the descendants of his victims,” the report said.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-11-06/uc-hastings-college-of-the-law-name-change

[Old Crank]

1. Good.

[Vogon_Glory]

2. Some right wing-nut will probably rail about PC and wokeness

But Hastings’ behavior was vile and barbaric. That school’s name ought to be changed.

[hunter]

3. That stuff wasn't in our California history books when I was a kid.

So far as we knew all the good Indians went to the Missions or Reservations and lived happily ever after. Some Indians were violent and there were some wars. That was a long time ago.

My pacifist ancestors loved the Indians as they loved all God's children. They didn't go out hunting non-white people who refused to assimilate as second class citizens, they didn't burn down any communities (Indian, Chinese, or Black...), and they were proud of that. But they were still racists who were convinced their way of life was naturally superior and that's why other cultures were fading away.

Many of my wife's ancestors were Native Americans who lived around what's now the Mexican border. They were forced into Mexico by violence and later returned as immigrant farm workers. My wife's dad was born in a farm workers camp near a small farm my parent's used to own.

My grandfather, who considered himself a very tolerant man could work with anyone of any race, man or woman, gay or straight. He'd supported the integration of the Army, schools, etc., he and my grandma had gay friends and acquaintances in Hollywood. He romanticized Native American culture, loved to wear Navajo Jewelry, etc.. Nevertheless, he lost his shit when my wife and I announced our engagement. Men in his family simply did not marry, in his words, "Mexican girls." To his credit he got over it.