Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 22, Number 10, 1 October 2005 — Rehearing decision due in Kamehameha case [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Rehearing decision due in Kamehameha case

By Sterling Kini Wnng Publicatiūns Editor As Ka Wai Ola went to print in late September, a decision was due imminently on Kamehameha Schools' request for a rehearing of a federal appeals court's ruling that the schools' Hawaiian-preference admission policy violates federal civil rights laws. In early August, a threejudge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals ruled 2-1 that the school's 117-year-old admissions policy is illegal because it acts as an "absolute bar" to non-Hawaiians. Kamehameha Schools' attorneys subsequently petitioned to invoke a process called "en banc," in whieh a panel of 11 judges would review the case and issue another ruling. On Sept. 14, the attorneys for a non-Hawaiian student who has been prevented from attending Kamehameha Schools filed a statement urging the court not to rehear the case because it "involves no dramatic or unusual eonelusion of law." In addition, one

of the boy's attorneys said that if the student isn't allowed to attend the school before he graduates in the summer, they may seek monetary damages. "That's not what the client is in for; he wants to go to school," attorney Eric Grant told the Associated Press. He did not specify how mueh money they might seek. Meanwhile, support for the school continued to multiply. Twelve friends-of-the-court briefs in support of rehearing the case were filed by a wide range of national and loeal organizations, including the National Association of Independent Schools, whieh has a membership of 1,200 private schools from across the nation. In its brief, the organization stated that "the panel majority decision represents an unprecedented judicial intrusion into the very core of the remedial mission of a completely privately funded independent school." Other nahonal supporters of Kamehameha Schools include the Nahonal Indian Education Association, the Alaskan Federal of Natives and the Equal Justice Society. E3

NŪ HOU • NEWS

Kamehameha Schools supporter shows off her T-shirt at the schools' \Aug. 6 rally. Photo: Sterling Kini Wong