Faigman

BACKGROUND

1. Facts 3 Born in 1814, Serranus Clinton Hastings (S.C. Hastings) was the first Chief Justice of California and the State’s third Attorney General. In addition to holding these public roles, he amassed significant wealth from various real estate ventures and by 1870, became one of the largest landowners in California. In 1878, S.C. Hastings sought to establish the first law school on the West Coast of the United States and proposed the same to the California Legislature. In response, the Legislature enacted a statute that same year titled “An Act to create Hastings’ College of the Law, in the University of the State of California” (the Act). (Stats. 1878, ch. 351.) The Act provided “[t]hat S.C. Hastings be authorized to found and establish a Law College, to be forever known and designated as ‘Hastings’ College of the Law.’ ” (Stats. 1878, ch. 351, § 1.) The Act further provided that the College would be governed by a Board of Directors (Board), independent of the Regents of California, and that the directors “shall always provide for filling a vacancy with some heir or some representative of [] S.C. Hastings.” (Id.) The Act’s passage was expressly conditioned upon…