The former UC Hastings, which now goes by the awkward moniker University of California College of the Law San Francisco or UC Law SF, is making an attempt to rebrand the Tenderloin too, with a $229 million, 656-unit graduate student housing complex slated to open this summer.

The prestigious downtown SF law school UC Hastings finally reckoned with its founder’s troublesome past and changed its name to College of the Law San Francisco in July 2022. They’ve apparently settled on the snappier abbreviation UC Law SF (though their website is still on a UC Hastings URL).

The school made waves in the Tenderloin during the pandemic by suing the city over the prevalence of encampments, and being a law school, their legal threats worked and got nearly 400 people off the streets and housed in shelter-in-place hotels.

Now the law school is changing the Tenderloin in another way, as KRON4 reports they’ll be bringing a $229 million, 656-unit graduate student housing complex to the neighborhood. The complex, which has been under construction for a couple of years, will be called Academe 198, a reference to its 198 McAllister Street address, which was formerly classrooms.

The Chronicle reports that the remodeled building is 14 stories tall. That paper adds that “One-third of the apartments — about 230 — will be master-leased by UCSF,” and that “The rest of them will be available not only to UC Law SF students, but also to students from UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University, University of San Francisco and the University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry.” There are additional plans for some ground-floor retail in the mix as well.

“This particular building is 656 units of housing as well as three levels of academic space, classrooms, large auditorium, community-serving retail,” UC Law SF CFO David Seward told KRON4.

So out of curiosity, what’s the rent? KRON4 reports that “Rent in the new building starts at $1,850 per month for 232 square feet and goes up to $3,400 for a two-bedroom.”

It’s a bet on revitalizing the Tenderloin, and it’s not the school’s only one. They’re also promising a $90 million renovation and build-out of the adjacent 200 McAllister tower, which is also currently student housing.

In a happy coincidence, the district’s now-supervisor Dean Preston is a UC Hastings/UC Law SF alumnus. “I’m an alum who spent many hours in the former 198 McAllister building earning my law degree,” Preston told KRON4. “I had the pleasure of touring the development site recently, and I am excited for the opening of this student housing in the neighborhood.”

According to its website, “The Academe at 198 opens in late Summer 2023.”

Related: UC Hastings to Be Renamed the Rather Awkward 'College of the Law San Francisco' [SFist]

Image: Academe198SF

In case you missed the news of this reckoning last year, the namesake of the University of California's SF law school, Serranus Hastings, had a lot of Native American blood on his hands, and many have called on the school's board of directors to rename UC Hastings. And now they have.

Serranus Clinton Hastings (1814 – 1893), who founded the law school, ordered the mass killing of at least 283 Native Americans — men women and children — in one of the deadliest of a long series of state-sanctioned, militia-led massacres. The killings, which took place in 1860 at Hastings' behest, were part of some efforts to clear land for white settlers' use that have been a long-buried piece of California history — and the New York Times discussed the revelations about Hastings in an October 2021 exposé. Additionally, thousands of members of Yuki tribe members from Mendocino county were enslaved by Hastings

Hastings used some of his ill-gotten earnings, from cattle and horse ranches and real estate that he sent henchmen to "protect" by killing Yuki tribespeople — including, by one account, a young girl who was killed for "stubbornness" — to provide the founding donation for the college of law.

Some of the school's prominent alumni and members of the board all agreed that Hastings' money, and the school's name, were tainted by these truths — which began coming to light five years ago through the research of Bay Area lawyer John Briscoe. In a Chronicle opinion piece in 2017, Briscoe discussed how both Hastings and Leland Stanford had Indigenous blood on their hands — as governor, Stanford signed appropriations bills that helped fund some of these genocidal campaigns, so there's a case for renaming Stanford University as well.

Now, as the Chronicle reports, UC Hastings' board of directors has voted on a new name, nine months after deciding the name change had to occur.

Yuki and Round Valley tribe members had been calling for the school to get an Indigenous name. But instead, the board has gone with the generic and awkward mouthful, University of California: College of the Law San Francisco. (The previous, full name was University of California: Hastings College of the Law) An Assembly bill, AB 1936, was passed in the state legislature earlier this summer, which resolved that the school should change its name and make efforts to help tribal people. Those efforts include providing financial aid to Indigenous students who want to attend the school.

It was a previous state, law in 1878, that had declared the school "shall forever be known and designated as the Hastings College of the Law."

The board will also be issuing a formal apology to the tribes, and space has been allocated in the main lobby of the school for a memorial to those killed.

Alleged Christian groups all over the U.S. have incorrectly and abusively attempted to use the First Amendment to commit balls out acts of hate and discrimination. Take, for example, anti-gay group the Christian Legal Society, who, while attempting to bar UC Hastings members who happen to be gay, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court claiming their free speech rights were being trampled on (not the case) because of the college's nondiscrimination policy.

Not so much, the Supreme Court ruled today. After the ruling, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had this to say:

"In requiring CLS — in common with all other student organizations — to choose between welcoming all students and forgoing the benefits of official recognition, we hold, Hastings did not transgress constitutional limitations," said Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the 5-4 majority opinion for the court's liberals and moderate Anthony Kennedy. "CLS, it bears emphasis, seeks not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption from Hastings' policy."

Yeah, even your average Orange County Republican knows that a public institution cannot and should not support any group's effort to practice discrimination. The "ideological" 5-4 judgment was, one could say, truly an act of justice with the love of God. See you in hell, CLS.

Today, a little before noon, a suicide attempt occurred at Hastings Law School. We received the information via our Contribute section (which, by all means, do) and from Introducing Ashley. (Aw) She reports that a "female student had attempted to jump from the 21st floor. Luckily, her friends and local police were able to talk her back inside."

What's more, she goes on to say in her blog that "[i]t is amazing to me how much death there is at UC Hastings. We seem to be averaging one suicide a term." Really? Why are UC Hastings law students trying to off themselves at such a (seemingly) high rate? Hey, most of us wanted to get into Boalt, but that doesn't mean that things won't get better. Chin up, UCH.


image credit: Introducing Ashley