Goodbye John Marshall. So long Serranus Hastings. It’s been good to know you T.C. Williams.
A handful of law schools have recently dropped the names of long-ago benefactors, as part of an effort to cease honoring people they feel were racist. But some critics have fought back, arguing the schools are too woke for their own good and filing lawsuits.
Two law schools that announced this past fall that they would change the names of their schools have been sued.
The University of Richmond in Virginia removed the name of T.C. Williams from its law school name and the California State Senate and Assembly approved a name change to the University of California Hastings College of Law — dropping the Hastings name.
Robert Smith, a lawyer who graduated from Richmond Law and the great-great-grandson of T.C. Williams, sued University of Richmond.
The university board voted to change the name in September, following a new policy prohibiting the university from naming any building, program, professorship or entity “for a person who directly engaged in the trafficking and/or enslavement of others or openly advocated for the enslavement of people.”
According to the university, census and local government records show that Williams was an enslaver, whose businesses were taxed on owning 25 to 40 enslaved people.
In a letter sent to Kevin Hallock, president of the University of Richmond, Smith describes the Williams family contribution of $25,000 in the late 1800s and how that impacts the school’s very existence to this day.
“Exercising quiet humility and modesty, the Williams family’s contributions have served the University for nearly 200 years, and the City of Richmond much longer,” Smith stated in the letter. “You moved to Richmond two years ago. Besides being a carpet-bagging weasel and spitting on the graves of my family, what have you done for the University or the City of Richmond?
Now Smith is asking for that donation back, which he says, would amount to over $3.6 billion today when inflation and interest are factored in. An inflation calculator shows it is equivalent to $570,000.
Descendants are also behind a lawsuit against the state of California and David Faigman, the school’s dean and chancellor who voted for this change. The school said Serranus Hastings had a role in the slaughter of Native Americans in the mid-19th century.
“There is no effort from me or the College to oppose a name change,” Faigman wrote in a letter to his school’s community. “My commitment is to do what we can to bring restorative justice to the Yuki People and other Indigenous communities who were affected by Serranus Hastings’ horrific acts. My own understanding of what the College can and should do relative to the Yuki People is evolving.”
The lawsuit describes an 1878 agreement with California to create and fund the school, which promised Hastings’ heirs $100,000, plus interest, should the school ever “cease to exist.” It also states the change would waste tax dollars and disputes the evidence about Hastings’ ties to the slaughter of Indigenous people.
Meanwhile, St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida could face its own lawsuit for adding Benjamin L. Crump to its official name. Crump, a prominent civil rights attorney, has been involved in several high-profile racial cases involving the death of black people.
The Floridian reported that a few students from the school within a year or so of graduating are “fuming mad and considering legal action against the school for renaming the law school after Crump.”
One of The Floridian’s sources said that applied and were accepted to the St. Thomas University College of Law but would not have done so if they or knew it would be renamed after the controversial attorney. “The student (s) said that it’s not what they signed up for, and are worried that Crump’s name on their diploma will dissuade potential employers from hiring them because of the racial controversy he brings with him,” reported the Floridian.
