Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 20, Number 7, 1 July 2003 — Hold on $31 million in federal funding for Native Hawaiian education programs released [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Hold on $31 million in federal funding for Native Hawaiian education programs released

By Sterling Kini Wong Native Hawaiian education programs will benefit from the distribution of $31 million in federal funds that were temporarily blocked for about a month. The flow of federal funds under the Native Hawaiian Education Act were halted for unknown reasons, but Attorney General Mark Bennett speculated that there were concerns amongst the Bush administration regarding the constitutionality of the appropriation of monies to programs that would benefit only Hawaiians. "We had to assuage those eoncerns and convince them that the programs were not race based and would pass constitutional muster," Bennett said. Gov. Linda Lingle, Bennett and the Hawai'i Congressional delegation persuaded high-level officials in the Department of Justice, Department of Education, White House, and Office of Management and Budget to distribute the grants for education programs under the Native Hawaiian Education Act. "It was a real team effort on the part of the Lingle administration and the congressional delegation," Bennett said. "We worked hard and ultimately succeeded." Jennifer Sabas, the chief of staff for Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawai'i, explained that the Hawai'i congressional delegation and Gov. Lingle's administration implemented a twoprong approach to persuading the Bush administration.The congressional delegation worked the budget

angle and the Lingle administration, in collaboration with the Indian Affairs Committee, worked the policy angle. Gov. Lingle's June 12 announeement of the resumption of the process of distribution of these federal monies eame shortly after the U.S. Justice Department, in a letter to Sen. 01ympia Snowe R-Maine, chairwoman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, questioned the inclusion of Native Hawaiians in a bill that would authorize grants and other assistance for small businesses owned by Indian Tribe members and Native Alaskans. The Justice Department characterized the political status of Native Hawaiians as an "unresolved question," because Congress has not recognized any group of Native Hawaiians as an Indian tribe. Sabas said that bills are susceptible to the scrutiny of the administration, but the Native Hawaiian Education Act has been enacted into law. "There is nothing discretionary

about this; these funds have been authorized and appropriated for decades," Sabas said. Manu Ka'iama, the director of the Native Hawaiian Leadership Project, said her program was preparing letters to their 500 new applicants notifying them that there would be no new applicant awards due to the impediment of the federal funds. "Basically, we were telling our new applicants that the rug has been pulled from under them," Ka'iama said. The Native Hawaiian Leadership Project, funded completely through the Native Hawaiian Education Act, assists Native Hawaiians in attaining undergraduate, graduate and doctorate degrees. The project funds over 200 scholarships, faculty trips, curriculum development programs, workshops and graduate and teaching assistantships. Ka'iama said that when her program was first awarded money five years ago she realized that the flow of the federal money was contingent upon the whims of the federal administration. She decided to allocate the program's money over a two-year span, thus guaranteeing scholarship awardees money for at least two semesters. "If our funds stopped, we would be phased out in a year," Ka'iama said. "The eeonomie effect of such action would be far-reaching." Ka'iama said she has been seeking out other sources of funding, such as OHA, so the program is not solely dependent on federal funds. n

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Native Hawaiian Leadership Project Director Manu Ka'iama (middle), with NHLP recipient 'lwalani Lum and NHLP counselor Rona Kekauoha. Photo: courtesy NHLP