Hawaiian School’s Admission Fight Back in Court
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Scotus Blog, August 6, 2008
The six-year running battle over the admissions policy of a highly regarded trio of private schools in Hawaii—the Kamehameha Schools—is back in the courts, with one side specifically aiming for an ultimate test in the Supreme Court. An earlier case, testing whether an 1866 civil rights law still bars the use of race in private school admissions, reached the Court last year, but was settled before the Justices took final action on it.
A new lawsuit, raising the same challenge, was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Hawaii—with the same name (Doe v. Kamemameha Schools), but with new individuals suing. Also on Wednesday, the Schools filed a separate lawsuit in state court in Hawaii, claiming a violation of the 2007 settlement agreement because one of the attorneys involved had disclosed the confidential terms of the deal, including, the attorney said, a payment of $7 million to the youth who had sued. The Schools’ trustees are seeking return of the money, and other money damages.
The new Doe lawsuit in federal court notes that the earlier challenge to the admissions policy, preferring students of “Hawaiian ancestry,” had failed in both the District Court and in the en banc Ninth Circuit Court. The two lawsuits, it says, are “virtually identical,” but it indicates that the four youths and their parents who sued “intend by this action to have that [Ninth Circuit] ruling overturned in the Supreme Court of the United States.”
The first lawsuit against the Schools’ admission policy was filed by a youth identified only as “John Doe”, who sued in June 2003 after being denied admission four times. He is a lifelong resident of Hawaii, but is not “Native Hawaiian” in a racial sense, his challenge noted. As a minor, he was joined in the lawsuit by his mother, identified only as “Jane Doe.” The Kamehameha Schools are three kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade private schools on three of Hawaii’s islands.
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The new civil rights lawsuit is based on so-called “Section 1981,” guaranteeing all races equal rights to enter into contracts. In Runyon v. McCrary, the Supreme Court ruled that Section 1981 prohibits private, commercially operated, non-religious schools from denying admission to prospective students who were black.
The four Doe youths and their parents contend in the new complaint that they have been denied admission to the Kamehameha Schools because they are not of Hawaiian ancestry. They noted that only one student who was not of Hawaiian ancestry has ever been admitted to the Schools (that one admission was in 2002), with all other such applicants turned away because of their race. They also noted that the Ninth Circuit, while upholding the policy in an 8-to-7 en banc ruling in 2006, had said that the Schools’ admission policy “operates to admit students without any Hawaiian ancestry only after all qualified qpplicants with such ancestry have been admitted.”
The lawsuit seeks money damages, as well as a court order striking down the ancestry preference and forbidding its continuation.
[Read a press release from the lawyers on the new case here.]
(Posted on August 7, 2008)
Comments
Very interesting.
If the lawsuit fails or the high court refuses to hear the case, it quite literally opens the door to white only private schools.
Posted by at 4:53 PM on August 7
If the schools win then there will be instant white only and black only school movements.
Posted by Oldman at 5:07 PM on August 7
A case of blatant private racial discrimination
Isn’t there also a bill bandied about lately to make parts of the islands officially recognized sovereign territory for natives?
Posted by at 7:38 PM on August 7
This is a private school. They should be allowed to admit any student they choose and deny any they choose. They could deny a student just because they don’t like the way he looks. This is about freedom and having a free society means having freedom of association. This school is funded by the parents that pay to have their children attend. If they want their children to attend a school only with other Hawaiian kids, then that should be the parents choice. The government should not be involved with this.
There are all black schools, but you will never hear about a lawsuit where a non-black is seeking entrance into that school. The reasons for this are obvious.
Posted by at 8:17 PM on August 7
Two quick thoughts. A private school should be free from state intrusion and able to reject whoever it wants to for whatever reason. Secondly Hawaii should never have been made a state.
Posted by at 9:20 PM on August 7
Anonymous at 8:17 PM August 7 wrote:
There are all black schools, but you will never hear about a lawsuit where a non-black is seeking entrance into that school. The reasons for this are obvious.
There was a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1980. The crux is that a school that was exclusive to some sort of non-white group could be tax deductible, but a white school couldn’t. So your argument doesn’t carry too much water with me, not until this SCOTUS decision is reversed.
Posted by Question Diversity at 9:23 PM on August 7
Hawaiians should be free of USA interference, and we would be far better without them. They lost their homeland, and we were entangled in yet another harmful relationship with an alien people.
The only possible justification would have been to attain far-flung military bases to defend against enemies who could never hope to successfully invade or hurt us. Obviously we always had fools and idiots among us, who insisted we get involved in useless wars, instead of prospering in strength and tranquility…but a few million people in a huge country, room to roam and spread out, separated by vast oceans from ANYONE who could possibly harm us. Talk about blowing a bright future!
And anybody should be allowed to exclude anybody else from a PRIVATE school. To deny people the right of private association is nothing less than TYRANY. Do you think Jefferson, Washington or Adams would disagree?
The whole dilemma is a completely predictable outcome of what was a completely avoidable stupid choice; to annex Hawaii!
And, in conclusion, the whole affair( wandering far and wide, only to bring home deadly trouble to roost in our own homes), is the epitaph of the greatest nation the world ever knew.
Posted by at 6:38 AM on August 8
Non-white institutions are often granted exemptions from the laws and regulations with which whites are expected to comply. Here’s an interesting excerpt from black Howard University’s webpage:
“To protect its character [ha] and standards of scholarship [black spaceship-flying pharoahs] the University reserves the right, and the applicant concedes to the University the right, to deny admission to any student at any time for any reason the University deems sufficient.”
http://www.howard.edu/enrollment/admission/undergraduate.htm
Is there any doubt as to what that really means? And could any predominantly white institution get away with this policy? “Sorry, LaQuaneesha, but admitting you would alter the character of our institution. We like it white around here.”
Posted by Cassiodorus at 9:58 PM on August 8
What you do not know is that people of all races who have an Hawaiian ancestor attend Kamehameha schools. As long as you can prove some Hawaiian ancestry, regardless of degree, you qualify for admission to Kamehameha. My cousin’s who is blonde and blue eyed, graduated from Kamehameha Schools.
Posted by kauaigirl at 10:53 PM on August 9