University of California, Hastings College of the Law is a storied public law school in San Francisco. Founded in 1878 by Serranus Clinton Hastings, the first Chief Justice of California, it was one of the first law schools established in the western United States and continues to be one of the few university-affiliated law schools in the country that does not share its campus with undergraduates or other graduate programs. Hastings College has 56 full-time professors and 80 adjuncts. Around 400 students enter the school each year. According to the Internet Legal Research Group, based on a 2001-2007 six-year average, 80.8% of Hastings College graduates passed the California State Bar and 93.9% of its graduates were employed within nine months of graduation. Its enrollment of 1,337 (in Fall 2010) was 60% female and 44% students of color. U.S. News & World Report ranks Hastings College 42nd among top law schools in the country and as the most diverse of the four law schools in the UC system. The school was also given a B+ in the March 2011 issue of The National Jurist Magazine’s Diversity Honor Roll.

Quick Facts (Hastings website)

Hastings College was founded in 1878 by Serranus Clinton Hastings, a 19th-century politician and lawyer. He opened a law office in Iowa in 1837 when it was still a territory and won election to the House of Representatives after it became a state in 1846. When his term ended, he became chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court. One year later he resigned and moved to California, where he was appointed California’s first Supreme Court chief justice in 1849. Two years later, he became the state’s attorney general and began amassing the fortune through land deals that he used, in part, to create a law school bearing his name.

Although Hastings was a highly esteemed member of the establishment by the time he started his school, not everyone shared a high opinion of him. Charles Edward Pickett, who wrote for a number of newspapers in Oregon and later California, held a deep and abiding hatred of “Plundercrats” and lawyers. “Philosopher Pickett,” as he signed his broadsides, was known for the “stream of political penny-dreadfuls that left his pen” and was a populist ahead of his time, attacking monopoly, exploitation and enormous wealth.

He didn’t like Serranus Hastings and accused him of selling his decisions as chief justice, of having rendered purely political decisions as attorney general and of being “the head of that villainous squad of ‘leading lawyers’ in California known as the ‘Supreme Court Brokers’.” Pickett also accused Hastings of having bribed, with others, the Supreme Court in a land title dispute that destroyed Pickett’s title to two houses.

Pickett was sure that Hastings, a Catholic, had been compelled to establish the law school by his “Father Confessor when informed of a portion of his crimes.”

There is no record of Hastings taking or giving bribes, or committing any other malfeasance in office or corruption outside it.

In 1878, Justice Hastings gave $100,000 to the University of California for the school with two conditions attached: The school would always remain in San Francisco near the courts—UC Hastings is within a two-block radius of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, the California Supreme Court, the California Court of Appeal for the First District, and San Francisco Superior Court—and it could not be governed by the Regents of the University of California, which is the 26-member UC governing board. As a result, Hastings College must obtain funds directly from the California Legislature, while all other UC institutions receive money from the Regents.

It took about a year for the arrangement, which granted the board of directors full power and authority for the operation of the foundation while its founder served as dean, to fall into disarray.

Early on, Serranus Hastings disagreed with the board’s position opposing the admission of women in its first year of operation. At the heart of the board’s decision to resist in the courts was its quest for greater autonomy from UC and the founder. Hastings clashed with the board over its relationship to UC, the curriculum, the mission of a law school and power.

Eventually, the board won and Hastings had little to do with the college for the last seven years of his life. He died in 1893.

Hastings College’s reputation, and its student body, grew over the ensuing years. It survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, roared through a golden era in the ‘20s and weathered the Depression better than most law schools.

The sudden death of Dean William M. Simmons shortly before school began in 1940 created a problem for the college; it didn’t have anyone to teach his three classes. Out of that mini-crisis came a solution that became a hallmark of Hastings College: The Sixty-Five Club.

Young teachers were unavailable on short notice, but there were a number of experienced professors who had been forced into compulsory retirement. Hastings College and its new dean, David Ellington Snodgrass, hired a few and when World War II made the shortage of young teachers even more acute, they began to snap up retirees in bulk.

Dozens of “retirees” joined the faculty over the years, including former deans from more than a dozen law schools, a couple of California Supreme Court justices and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg. By the 1951-52 academic year, the Sixty-Five Club was teaching 70% of the classes.

In the mid-50s legendary former Harvard Law School Dean Roscoe Pound said of Hastings College: “Indeed, on the whole, I am inclined to think you have the strongest law faculty in the nation.”

In 1953, Hastings College ended its nomadic existence in San Francisco—its various homes included the Academy of Sciences, a church, city hall (twice), a medical college and a synagogue—with the dedication of a classroom building on McAllister Street, now called Snodgrass Hall.

In June 2001, the Hastings College board of directors added chancellor to Dean Mary Kay Kane’s title in recognition of her campus responsibilities that mirrored those of chancellors on other UC campuses.

The Era of the Sixty-Five Club (Hastings website)

Chancellor and Dean Mary Kay Kane Steps Down After 13 Years (pdf)

Exploring the College's Past (Hastings website)

Founding and Founder (by Thomas Garden Barnes, Hastings College of the Law—The First Century) (pdf)

Col Charles Edward "Philosopher Pickett" Pickett (Find A Grave)

Trials and Ties, Disputes and Divisions (by Thomas Garden Barnes, Hastings College of the Law—The First Century) (pdf)

Hastings has been an American Bar Association approved school since 1939 and currently offers a three-year Juris Doctor program with studies available in taxation, civil litigation, public interest law, criminal law, international law, family law, and intellectual property law.

It is governed by an 11-member board of directors. Ten of the 11 members are appointed by the governor, confirmed by the Senate and serve for 12 years. By statute, one member must be an heir or representative of the founder, Serranus Clinton Hastings.

The administration is led by the Chancellor/Dean, who is hired by the board. Other members of the administration include: Academic Dean, Chief Financial Officer, General Counsel, Controller, Human Resources and Registrar.

During their first year, students take legal writing and research and then engage in moot court arguments with a written brief and computer-aided research.

In the second and third years, students may take any course or supplement their courses with judicial externships/internships, judicial clinics, or study abroad. There are 125 course offerings available for students who want to specialize in tax, civil litigation, public interest law, or international and comparative law. Upper class course offerings include 69 lecture courses, 50 writing seminars, and 16 professional skills courses. The college also offers a one-year LL.M. degree in U.S. legal studies for those holding law degrees from foreign law programs.

An important part of a Hastings legal education is the opportunities provided to students in the form of in-house and out-placement clinics, externships, and skills-based simulation courses. Each clinic enrolls from eight to 24 students per semester. Each year there are approximately 150 places for students in the in-house and out-placement clinics.

Hastings has one of the most extensive judicial externship programs in the country, with students working with federal and state court judges at the trial and appellate levels. Each year, about 120 students spend a semester as an extern.

Simulation courses are taught by both full-time faculty members and adjunct faculty members who are practicing attorneys, giving students access to real-life situations, enabling them to simulate different advocacy, counseling, and/or transactional planning roles. Each year there are about 300 places for students in these courses; enrollment is typically 16-24 students per section.

Faculty and Administration (Hastings website)

Juris Doctor Program (Hastings website)

By-Laws (Hastings website) (pdf)

Although Hastings College is affiliated with the University of California, it receives funding directly from the state, not the UC Board of Regents.

However, like all schools of higher learning, the law school has seen a steady decline in California General Fund support. Only $6.9 million of its $68.6 million 2011-12 budget comes from the state. That is down from $10.6 million in 2007-08.

The bulk of its money, $48.5 million, comes from tuition and student fees. Another $12.8 million is collected from extramural programs including grants, gifts and endowments for non-core activities, and self-supporting enterprises like the bookstore, the parking garage and student housing.

The law school spends the largest portion of its budget, $20.8 million, on instruction. Around $16.3 million goes for student services (financial aid, admissions, records, etc.), $12.8 million for extramural programs, $11.3 million for institutional support, $5 million for operations and $4 million for the law library.

3-Year Budget (pdf)

Higher Education Budget in Context (Legislative Analyst’s Office)

Clara Shortridge Foltz and Laura de Force Gordon

Two of Hasting College’s first student applicants had to take their case for admittance to the California Supreme Court because the board of directors had decided that women need not apply.

Although both women went on to distinguished careers, Clara Shortridge Foltz was the one the board should have feared.

She had moved to San Jose in 1874 with her husband and five children, but quickly divorced him, took custody of the kids, got involved in politics and took up the private study of law. Two years later, Foltz badgered the state Legislature and the governor into amending the law to substitute “any citizen or person” for “any white male citizen” as a basic qualification to join the bar.

But being allowed to practice law was no guarantee of a place in law school. Hastings College refused to admit Foltz and Laura de Force Gordon and they each sued separately. The lawsuits were later combined with Foltz listed as the sole plaintiff.

The college argued that the 1868 act which created the University of California and guaranteed women access didn’t apply to it because of its special, independent (though affiliated) relationship with UC.

The justices unanimously decided against the school in Foltz v. Hoge (1879).

Foltz later became the first woman admitted to the California bar, the first woman deputy district attorney, founder of the California parole system, originator of the public defender system and activist in the Republican Party. Gordon had an equally illustrious, though less flamboyant, career as a leading suffragette, author and lawyer.

Neither Foltz nor Gordon actually graduated from Hastings College. The honor of being the first woman graduate went to Mary McHenry in 1882. She took the last name Keith when she married in 1885, and later became California’s most prominent suffragette and intimate friend of Susan B. Anthony.

Trials and Ties, Disputes and Divisions (by Thomas Garden Barnes, Hastings College of the Law—The First Century) (pdf)

“Litigating Palestine”

In March 2011, Hastings College Chancellor/Dean Frank Wu withdrew the school’s support of a controversial conference entitled “Litigating Palestine: Can Courts Secure Palestinian Rights?” The conference was hosted at the school’s Alumni Reception Center and moderated by two of the law school’s professors.

While contending that a decision to host or financially support a conference is not an endorsement of any viewpoints expressed at the conference, Wu announced that Hastings College was nonetheless removing its name and brand from the conference. His announcement came after the school Board of Directors adopted a resolution advocating those actions. Wu also cancelled his plans to give the welcoming address.

Critics of the conference asserted that it was giving a platform to Islamic organizations in the United States who are using “lawfare” to wage an aggressive campaign against Israel.

“Lawfare” is generally used to describe the use of domestic or international law as a weapon to attack an opponent by winning a public relations victory, diverting its resources to legal action or financially crippling it via legal judgment.

Wu withdrew the college’s support of the conference after receiving a letter from Tammi Rossman-Benjamin at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Leila Beckwith at UCLA. They argued that while the school is well within its rights to sponsor a conference on lawfare as it pertains to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the authorized description of the event indicated that the participants would be advocating for one side of the debate.

They argued that the event fit international standards that define anti-Semitism and may be in violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The letter said that the conference’s principal sponsor, The Trans-Arab Research Institute, has stated that part of its mission is “the elimination of the Jewish state.” 

The institute promotes the right of return to Israel of millions of Palestinians and the formation of a single Jewish-Palestinian state. The organizer of the conference, Professor George Bisharat, is on the institute’s board. The letter said that most of the speakers at the conference are affiliated with the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign supported by the institute.

Bisharat defended the panel’s makeup and the conference agenda, arguing that the purpose of the event was to train lawyers to defend Palestinian rights, not to debate whether they exist. “If you had a conference on Holocaust reparation cases, you wouldn't include Holocaust deniers,” Bisharat said.

Basil Plastiras, president of the Hastings College fundraising foundation listed a co-sponsor, said the school had never found it necessary to include “balancing” comments in conferences on litigating human rights cases in foreign countries.

The faculty had approved the conference beforehand, and nearly all of the school’s tenured professors signed a letter afterward protesting the decision by Wu and the board. The letter said that academic freedom includes providing forums for controversial topics and the school’s official actions undermine “our commitment to maintaining both the college's fiscal viability and its high standards.”

The two-day conference drew about 75 law students, faculty and pro-Arab activists.

Litigating Palestine: Can Courts Secure Palestinian Rights? (Hastings website)

Islamist Lawfare on Steroids (FrontPage)

Letter from Tammi Benjamin to Chancellor Wu (My Perspective—John Poris)

Hastings' Board Pulls UC Brand from Rights Meeting (by Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle)

Profs Protest Dropping Palestinian Rights Talk (Associated Press)

'Litigating Palestine' at a Public-Supported Law School (by Stephen Schwartz, American Thinker)

Grade inflation has skyrocketed at American colleges and universities since 1960. It used to be about 15% of students received A’s; now it’s about 43%. In 1988, it was 27%.

For years, Hastings College was behind the curve, so to speak, but made an effort to catch up in 2008. The verdict is still out on the results and how everyone feels about them.

In May 2008, Hastings reformed its grading policy. Associate Academic Dean Harry Prince acknowledged the faults of the strict former grading policy in an e-mail to all students, making it clear that the faculty approved a more “relaxed” approach for 2008-2009 (and forward).

Normalizing the grade distribution was seen as a positive step because the prior grading scheme was considered to be harsh and out of step with other law schools.

As a result of the 2008 changes, the policy now:

·     increases the number of A- and above grades that instructors must give from 10-20% (the current requirement) to 15-25%.

·     decreases the number of grades below B- that instructors must give from 20-35% (the current requirement) to 12-17%.

·     abolishes the normalization restrictions for all classes with fewer than 30 students, except to require that such classes shall have a range of grades.

·     increases the grade point value of the grade of A+ from 4.0 to 4.3.

Additionally, graduation honors were made more inclusive in the following ways:

·     Summa: top 1% or GPA of 3.75 or higher (rather than top student)

·     Magna cum laude: top 10% or GPA of 3.5 or higher (rather than top 5%)

·     Cum laude: top 30% or GPA of 3.25 or higher (rather than top 15%)

Hastings Law Students Look to Stay Ahead of the Grading Curve (by Petra Pasternak, The Recorder)

New, Relaxed Grading Policy at UC Hastings (by Justin Gosling, The Shark)

UC Hastings Law School (by Stephanie Saenz, Stanford University)

A History of College Grade Inflation (by Catherine Rampell, New York Times)

Christian Legal Society v. Martinez

In December 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to referee Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, a dispute between Hastings College and a Christian student group that claimed it was being discriminated against “in the name of antidiscrimination.” The student group, which requires its members to “forswear sex outside heterosexual marriage,” contested the school’s refusal to afford it the privileges enjoyed by other student groups.

The issue for the court was whether Hastings denied the Christian Legal Society (CLS) access to university facilities because of its beliefs, not its conduct. The college has a number of recognized student organizations and the school gives them permission to use the college logo and access to college newsletters, bulletin boards and activity fees.

When the Hastings chapter of the Christian Legal Society applied for recognition, it was refused on the grounds that it violated the college's policy against unlawful discrimination “on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, sex or sexual orientation.” The school argued that although the society opens its meetings to all, it limits voting membership and leadership positions to “students who subscribe to its interpretation of Christian doctrine, including a prohibition on homosexual conduct.” According to Hastings, that constituted discrimination against both non-Christians and gays.

For the Christian Legal Society

The case drew 38 amicus curiae briefs, an unusually large number. The briefs offered contrasting views on the role of law school education and the pros and cons of exclusive membership in organizations. Some of those who came out in support of the Christian Legal Society proved surprising, such as Thomas Hungar of Dunn & Crutcher, who wrote the brief on behalf of Gays & Lesbians for Individual Liberty.

He wrote, “The journey toward legal equality and social acceptance has often begun with the rise of private associations of individuals united in the pursuit of a common cause. . . . Before there was a Nineteenth Amendment, there was the National Women's Party. . . . And before many states adopted protections against sexual orientation discrimination, there was an army of gay and lesbian advocacy groups in America. . . . The freedom to join with like-minded neighbors . . . has long been the essential democratic means by which Americans have pursued political, moral, cultural, and intellectual goals.”

Against the Christian Legal Society

Steven Shapiro of the American Civil Liberties Union wrote his brief on behalf of the ACLU and the National Education Association.

In part, he wrote: “If CLS were to prevail on its novel theory that its free-association and free-speech rights to exclude others in turn require the government to subsidize its discrimination, Hastings and other public universities would have no choice but to subsidize racially discriminatory groups, student groups that restrict membership based on gender, or groups that bar students with disabilities, so long as these groups articulate some way in which their ideology or expression theoretically might be impaired by requiring them to comply with a nondiscrimination rule.”

And the Winner Is . . .

During the Supreme Court hearing, CLS argued that Hastings could alter its policy to allow organizations to exclude a student if the student's “beliefs and conduct” did not correspond with the student organization, but could not allow a student to be excluded from an organization based on their status, meaning their race or gender.

Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that Hastings would then have to review each organization's exclusionary rules to determine “whether a student organization cloaked prohibited status exclusion in belief-based garb.” As an example, she used a hypothetical “Male-Supremacy Club” that forbade a female member from running for its presidency, leaving Hastings to determine if her election bid was denied because of her sex or because she did not adhere to the doctrine of male supremacy.

The CLS case involved the exclusion of homosexual students, so the religious organization asserted that it did not restrict membership based on sexual orientation, but rather on “conduct and belief that the conduct is not wrong.” Ginsburg rejected that distinction, noting that with respect to sexual orientation the court has “declined to distinguish between status and conduct.”

Ginsburg's analysis detailed how the case differed from two earlier cases involving university funding of student groups, including Healy v. James, which required a Connecticut state college to recognize a chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society^, and in Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., which ruled that student religious publications were entitled to equal funding at the University of Virginia. In these cases, the educational institutions singled out a group for unfavorable treatment based on the organization's purpose (leftist activism in the former and Christian evangelism in the latter). In CLS v. Martinez, Ginsburg argued that Hastings wanted to treat all student groups the same, while the CLS sought an exemption for their particular membership policies.

In June 2010, the Supreme Court sided with Hastings College.

Christian Legal Society vs. UC Hastings School of the Law (Los Angeles Times editorial)

Advocacy Groups Split in Supreme Court Case over Christian Law Student Group (by Tony Mauro, The National Law Journal)

Supreme Court Decision on Law School's Anti-Bias Policy May Have Limited Impact (by Peter Schmidt, The Chronicle of Higher Learning)

Leo Martinez, 2009-2010 (acting)

Nell Jessup Newton, 2006-2009

Mary Kay Kane, Dean, 1993-2006; Chancellor 2000-2006

Frank “Tom” Read, 1988-1993

Bert S. Prunty, 1981-1987

Marvin J. Anderson, 1970-1980

Arthur Maxwell Sammis, 1963-1970

David Ellington Snodgrass, 1940-1963

William M. Simmons, 1925-1940

Maurice E. Harrison, 1919-1925

Edward Robeson Taylor, 1899-1919

Charles William Slack, 1894-1899

C.F. Dio Hastings, 1891-1894

Robert Paul Hastings, 1887-1891

Joseph Winans, 1885-1886

Robert Paul Hastings, 1883-1885

Serranus Clinton Hastings, 1878-1883. Hastings, the politician and lawyer who founded the college that bears his name, first opened a law office in Iowa in 1837 when it was still a territory and won election to the House of Representatives after it became a state in 1846. When his term ended, he became chief justice of the Iowa Supreme Court. One year later he resigned and moved to California, where he was appointed California’s first Supreme Court chief justice in 1849. Two years later, he became the state’s attorney general and began amassing the fortune through land deals that he used, in part, to create a law school bearing his name.

In 1878, Justice Hastings gave $100,000 to the University of California for the school with two conditions attached: The school would always remain in San Francisco near the courts, and it could not be governed by the Regents of the University of California, which is the 26-member UC governing board. As a result, Hastings College must obtain funds directly from the California Legislature, while all other UC institutions receive money from the Regents.

It took about a year for the arrangement, which granted the board of directors full power and authority for the operation of the foundation while its founder served as dean, to fall into disarray.

Early on, Serranus Hastings disagreed with the board’s position opposing the admission of women in its first year of operation. At the heart of the board’s decision to resist in the courts was its quest for greater autonomy from UC and the founder. Hastings clashed with the board over its relationship to UC, the curriculum, the mission of a law school and power.

Eventually, the board won and Hastings had little to do with the college for the last seven years of his life. He died in 1893.

Trials and Ties, Disputes and Divisions (by Thomas Garden Barnes, Hastings College of the Law—The First Century) (pdf)

Founding and Founder (by Thomas Garden Barnes, Hastings College of the Law—The First Century) (pdf)