Forgot your password?
New user?
Maui, Hawaii
THE last of the great Hawaiian warrior kings was Kamehameha the Great, who conquered all the islands in the archipelago and established a unified Kingdom of Hawaii in 1810. Although Kamehameha and his rivals used firearms acquired from foreigners, for the most part warfare in those days involved direct hand-to-hand combat, to the death. During his campaign to take the island of Maui, Kamehameha is said to have rallied his troops by declaring: "Forward, little brothers, and drink bitter waters. There is no turning back."
I graduated from a school named for this warrior king. Founded in 1887 thanks to a bequest by the great-granddaughter of Kamehameha, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the Kamehameha Schools have limited admission to Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian children, subsidizing most of their education, for more than 100 years. In her will, the princess directed that the trustees "devote a portion of each year's income to the support and education of orphans, and others in indigent circumstances, giving the preference to Hawaiians of pure or part aboriginal blood." My grandmother attended the schools in 1920, my father in the late 1930's and 1940's, myself and a host of cousins in the 1960's and 1970's.
Three weeks ago, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled that in giving preference to Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian children, the Kamehameha Schools admissions policy violates the Civil Rights Act. That legislation, which forbids race discrimination in the making and enforcement of contracts, was intended to protect the disadvantaged. In this case, it has been used to exactly the opposite effect.
The plaintiff in this case, Doe v. Kamehameha, is a non-Hawaiian teenager who was denied admission under the schools' Hawaiian preference policy. On Tuesday, the schools filed a petition in the Ninth Circuit seeking a rehearing before the entire court. The Ninth Circuit is to decide whether it will rehear the case by Sept. 13.
The Kamehameha Schools admissions policy was intended to improve the social, economic and health conditions of the Hawaiian people. At the time of Princess Pauahi's bequest, imported diseases like smallpox, influenza, measles and whooping cough had devastated Hawaii's native population. When Capt. James Cook arrived in Hawaii in 1778, there were a million Native Hawaiians; by 1883, just 44,000 remained; and in 1919, that number was reduced to 22,000.
The Hawaiians who survived lived in desperate poverty. Historically, Hawaiians did not own the land they lived upon, but had rights to farm, fish and gather resources there. With the influx of foreign interests and the creation of private land ownership laws, by 1850 the commoner Hawaiian owned only 0.8 percent of all of the land. Seventy-one percent of all adult men were landless under the new system. The dispossessed migrated to urban areas in search of jobs.
The United States owes a political as well as an economic debt to the Hawaiian people. In 1893, a group of businessmen overthrew the islands' monarchy with the assistance of American military forces and the American minister to Hawaii. That paved the way, in 1898, for an annexation agreement that breached numerous treaties on friendship and trade between Hawaii and the United States, as well as violating international law and the United States constitution. In its 1993 Apology Resolution, Congress acknowledged that the United States wrongfully participated in the overthrow, and it expressed a commitment to reconciling with the Native Hawaiian people.
In the wake of the Ninth Circuit ruling, I have been asked why a school designated for Native Hawaiians is still necessary in the 21st Century. That's a good question. But it presupposes that at one time the race-conscious admissions policy was needed to counteract discrimination against Hawaiians, whereas today such problems are behind us.
They aren't. As the court itself acknowledged, disproportionate numbers of the state's poor, homeless and undereducated are Native Hawaiians. Compared with non-Hawaiians, Native Hawaiians are also more likely to experience child abuse and neglect, more likely to be involved in crime, and less likely to have professional and managerial jobs. Congress has repeatedly acknowledged the continuing need for remedial race-based legislation, having passed more than 85 laws that include preferences for Native Hawaiians. These include the Native Hawaiian Health Care Act of 1988, the Native Hawaiian Education Act of 2002, and the Hawaiian Homelands Ownership Act of 2000. Like the schools' race-based admissions policy, these affirmative action programs aim to redress the inequality suffered by an indigenous people.
Were the Kamehameha Schools forced to admit non-Hawaiian children, much would be lost. As it is, with around 70,000 Native Hawaiian children in the state, there is nowhere near enough space for them at these private schools, which operate three campuses on Oahu, Maui and the island of Hawaii and subsidize up to 90 percent of each student's education costs. For the three campuses combined, enrollment is limited to approximately 4,900 students with only 750 openings a year.
Any non-Hawaiian child admitted to the schools would take the place of a Hawaiian child, enjoying the benefits of a superlative private education at an institution rich in financial resources, dedicated teachers and excellent facilities, one that has a celebrated history and high standing in the community. To open the schools' admissions to non-Hawaiians would also violate the terms of the schools' trust instrument, which the princess devised in keeping with the traditional fiduciary obligation of the chiefs to manage the land for the Hawaiian people. Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians were, and remain, that trust's beneficiaries.
To admit non-Hawaiian children to the Kamehameha Schools in place of Hawaiian children would undermine the remedial intent of the schools' founder to elevate her people. And unfortunately, the need for remedy continues into the 21st century. That is why the Ninth Circuit should re-hear this case and reverse its earlier decision.
Water, Water Everywhere—for Investors
