My name is Reichi Lee. I am a mother to a 10-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son. After I graduated from UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, California in 2003, I worked at several Bay Area law firms before moving on to become a child advocate and educator. Hastings gave me an excellent education—it was there that I learned to think critically and advocate for the rights of others.

Like many other members of the public, I was horrified when I recently learned that the law school’s founder, Serranus Hastings, had used his prominence to order and finance the massacre of hundreds of Native Americans in Northern California in the 1850s. Never once as an alumnus was I ever informed of this history regarding our founder’s heinous, murderous acts, or that the law school (founded by Hastings in 1878 and named after him) had first learned of this back in 2017, formed a committee to consider steps to address this history, or that the committee had issued a report in 2020 concluding, without seeking broad community input, to retain its name (see pp. 7-11 of report).  (Thank you to Paul Laurin, Esq., a committee member who appears to be the sole dissenter, at least publicly, on the issue of re-naming Hastings. See Exhibit D of Appendix A of report.)

To separate itself from this disgraceful history, UC Hastings College of the Law must change its name. Justice demands that it does so immediately.

Through his power as a wealthy landowner and as the first Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court and the state’s third Attorney General, Serranus Hastings helped persuade the state to fund killing expeditions, enabling him to personally amass more land and increase his wealth (see Exhibit A of Appendix A of report). On one of these killing sprees, Hastings' foreman, a large man he employed named H.L. Hall, who went by "Texan Boy Hall," rounded up his friends and killed the men, women, infants and children among a group of Yuki Indians, including a 10-year-old girl who was killed for her "stubbornness." (See Appendix C of report.)

We don't know her name or anything else about this little girl. But I know that stubbornness. Maybe in the face of unimaginable terror, she stood her ground.

A popular argument among critics of name removals is that this type of "canceling" seeks to erase the necessary learning of past wrongs. I couldn't disagree more. We can both learn about past wrongs and take courageous steps towards a better future—one in which the names of learning institutions are not synonymous with genocide and do not lift up perpetrators of genocide.

I am calling on my colleagues, my professors, Hastings alumni, current students, the legal community and the community at large: this is our chance to speak up and to stand on the right side of history. Please join me in signing this petition demanding a name change for UC Hastings College of the Law. 

(Photo credit: Mike Kai Chen, The New York Times)