Opinion ID: 3039812
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Kamehameha Schools

Text: The Kamehameha Schools were created under a “charitable testamentary trust established by the last direct descendent of King Kamehameha I, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, who left her property in trust for a school dedicated to the education and upbringing of Native Hawaiians.” Burgert v. Lokelani Bernice Pauahi Bishop Trust, 200 F.3d 661, 663 (9th Cir. 2000). Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop’s will provided for the erection and maintenance of schools in the Hawaiian Islands, called the Kamehameha Schools, on the Hawaiian monarchy’s ancestral lands, with the purpose of providing “a good education in the common English branches, and also instruction in morals and in such useful knowledge as may tend to make good and industrious men and women.” Will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, reprinted in Wills and Deeds of Trust 17-18 (3d ed. 1957) (hereinafter “Pauahi Bishop Will”). The Pauahi Bishop Will also bestowed on the “trustees full power to make all such rules and regulations as they may deem necessary for the government of said schools and to regulate the admission of pupils.” Id. at 18. Under the direction of the original trustees, chaired by Pauahi Bishop’s widower, Charles Reed Bishop, the Kamehameha Schools opened in the late nineteenth century.3 During a speech on the Schools’ first Founder’s Day, in December 1888, Charles Reed Bishop stated that Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop had created the Kamehameha Schools, “in which Hawaiians have the preference,” so that “her own people” could once again thrive. Charles R. Bishop, The Purpose of the Schools, Handicraft, Jan. 1889, at 3. In 1910, not long after the death of Princess Bernice Pauahi 3 The Pauahi Bishop Will established two separate schools, one for boys and one for girls. The boys’ school opened in 1887 and the girls’ school in 1894. During the 1965-1966 school year, the two schools were consolidated. 19058 DOE v. KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS Bishop and the creation of the Kamehameha Schools, the question arose as to who should be admitted to the Schools. Cobey Black & Kathleen Mellen, Princess Pauahi Bishop and Her Legacy 155 (The Kamehameha Schools Press 1965). Charles Bishop wrote to the trustees: “Mrs. Bishop intended that, in the advantages of her beneficence, those of her race should have preference.” Id. Accordingly, he concluded that the principal of the Schools was justified in refusing to admit a student who had no native Hawaiian ancestry. Id. Bishop went on to convey that only if Native Hawaiians failed to apply to the Schools, or if conditions changed fundamentally, should admissions be opened to other ethnicities: “It was wise to prepare for and to admit natives only and I do not think the time has come to depart from that rule.” Id. Today, the Kamehameha Schools operate three K-12 campuses: Kapalama on the island of Oahu, Pukalani on the island of Maui, and Keaau on the island of Hawaii. There are about 70,000 school-aged children in Hawaii who meet the Schools’ definition of Native Hawaiian, but the Schools’ total enrollment is only about 4,856 students. The Kamehameha Schools subsidize much of the tuition cost for all students, requiring payment of only $1,784 per year, whereas the cost of educating a student amounts to about $20,000 annually. Sixty-five percent of those enrolled receive some form of financial aid to help them pay even that heavily subsidized, modest tuition. Part of the Kamehameha Schools’ stated admissions policy is to give preference to students of Native Hawaiian ancestry, defined to include any person descended from the aboriginal people who exercised sovereignty in the Hawaiian Islands prior to 1778. Practically, the policy operates to admit students without any Hawaiian ancestry only after all qualified applicants with such ancestry have been admitted. Because there are many more qualified students of Hawaiian ancestry than there are available places at the Schools, it is very rare that a student with no Hawaiian ancestry is admitted to the DOE v. KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS 19059 campus programs. But the admissions policy is not an absolute bar to non-Native Hawaiians; instead, it is intended to last only for so long as Native Hawaiians suffer educational disadvantages. We pause to note that the Schools’ policy contains no requirement for a minimum blood quantum of Hawaiian ancestry. The only requirement is that a student have at least one Native Hawaiian ancestor. Most students have mixed ancestry. More than 60 different racial and ethnic groups have been represented in the student body, and for the 2000-2001 academic year, students reported belonging to 39 different racial and ethnic groups. Accordingly, an observer visiting the Schools would see visible diversity notwithstanding the students’ commonality of having at least one Native Hawaiian ancestor. The Kamehameha Schools follow a “Leadership Model” of education. This curriculum is meant to foster the self-esteem and self-identity of students as individuals of Native Hawaiian descent by teaching Native Hawaiian culture, heritage, language, and tradition, in addition to general collegepreparatory courses. Kamehameha Schools also operate a number of other educational programs, including pre-schools, enrichment programs, and summer school programs. In those programs, the admission of non-Native Hawaiians occurs more often. For example, for the 2001-2002 school year, 13 children with no Native Hawaiian ancestry were admitted to Kamehameha’s pre-school program (two of the children declined admission); the following school year 12 non-Native Hawaiian children were admitted to the pre-school; and the year after that—the 2003-2004 school year—16 students without Native Hawaiian ancestry were admitted. And, in the summer of 2003, for instance, non-Native Hawaiians were enrolled in several of the enrichment programs run by the Kamehameha Schools: 6 of 133 students in the Performing Arts Academy; 33 of 1,741 19060 DOE v. KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS students in Explorations; 5 of 18 students in Culinary Arts; and 4 of 164 students in Hoolauna Keauhou. 3. Current Conditions in the Educational Status of Native Hawaiians Although the Kamehameha Schools are partly responsible for the Native Hawaiian community’s ability to maintain “its distinct character as an aboriginal, native people,” Native Hawaiians, nonetheless, continue to face “economic deprivation, low educational attainment, poor health status, substandard housing and social dislocation.” From Mauka to Makai at 2. In particular, Native Hawaiians have traditionally performed much below national averages in the educational arena. In 1981, Congress instructed the Office of Educa- tion to submit to Congress a comprehensive report on Native Hawaiian education. The report, entitled the “Native Hawaiian Educational Assessment Project,” was released in 1983 and documented that Native Hawaiians scored below parity with regard to national norms on standardized achievement tests, were disproportionately represented in many negative social and physical statistics indicative of special educational needs, and had educational needs that were related to their unique cultural situation, such as different learning styles and low self-image. 20 U.S.C. § 7512(14). That trend continues today. In 2002, Congress recognized that Native Hawaiians are severely disadvantaged in education. It found that: (A) educational risk factors continue to start even before birth from many Native Hawaiian children[;] ... DOE v. KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS 19061 (B) Native Hawaiian students continue to begin their school experience lagging behind other students in terms of readiness factors such as vocabulary test scores; (C) Native Hawaiian students continue to score below national norms on standardized education achievement tests at all grade levels; (D) both public and private schools continue to show a pattern of lower percentages of Native Hawaiian students in the uppermost achievement levels and in gifted and talented programs; (E) Native Hawaiian students continue to be over- represented among students qualifying for special education programs provided to students with learning disabilities, mild mental retardation, emotional impairment, and other such disabilities; (F) Native Hawaiians continue to be underrepre- sented in institutions of higher education and among adults who have completed four or more years of college; (G) Native Hawaiians continue to be dispropor- tionately represented in many negative social and physical statistics indicative of special educational needs[;] . . . . . . and (H) Native Hawaiians now comprise over 23 per- cent of the students served by the State of Hawaii Department of Education, and there are and will continue to be geographically rural, isolated areas with a high Native Hawaiian population density. 19062 DOE v. KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS 20 U.S.C. § 7512(16)(A)-(H). In addition, the most recent Native Hawaiian Educational Assessment, published in September 2005, concluded that, “[o]n the whole, . . . Native Hawaiian children in the public school system perform poorly in school compared with their non-Hawaiian peers.” Ka Huakai, 2005 Native Hawaiian Educational Assessment 229, available at http://ulukau.org/ elib/cgi-bin/library?c=nhea&l=en (hereinafter “Ka Huakai”). That most recent report found that 75% of public schools with a predominantly Native Hawaiian student body did not meet the state’s adequate yearly progress standards, but that number dropped to less than 58% for schools without a majority of Native Hawaiians, a difference of more than 17%. Id. at 251. Also, Native Hawaiian students in elementary and secondary public schools ranked the lowest of all major ethnic groups throughout the state in reading and math, falling between 9 and 15 percentiles behind the state average. Id. at 261, 268. In addition, only 69.4% of Native Hawaiian students graduated from high school in 2002, compared to a state average of 76.6% overall. Id. at 285.4