Thousands protest ruling on Hawaii schools

ASSOCIATED PRESS ^ | 8/7/2005 | ALEXANDRE DA SILVA

[dila813]

HONOLULU -- Blowing conch shells and chanting Hawaiian prayers, some 15,000 people marched through downtown Honolulu Saturday to protest a federal court ruling striking down Kamehameha Schools' Hawaiians-only admissions policy as unlawful.

"We are outraged," said Lilikala Kameeleihiwa, a professor of Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaii. "This is a great setback for our people. Here we are on our own homeland and we can't educate our children."

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled 2-1 on Tuesday that the private school's policy of admitting only native Hawaiians amounted to "unlawful race discrimination" even though the school receives no federal funding.

The decision shocked school officials and devastated the Native Hawaiian community. The school has defended the exclusive policy as a remedy to socio-economic and educational disadvantages Hawaiians' have suffered since the 1893 U.S.-backed overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy.

Protests against the ruling were planned throughout the islands Saturday.

"Our hearts have bled in these past four days," Michael Chun, headmaster at the school's main Kapalama campus on Oahu, told the massive crowd blanketing the courtyard surrounding Iolani Palace - the former residence of the Hawaiian Kingdom's last two monarchs.

"We must stand together to focus and right this wrong," Chun said. "March tall, march proud, march strong."

The Kamehameha Schools were established under the 1883 will of a Hawaiian princess. About 5,100 Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian students from kindergarten through 12th grade attend the three campuses, which are partly funded by a trust now worth $6.2 billion. Admission is highly prized in Hawaii because of the quality of education and the relatively low cost.

Non-Hawaiians may be admitted if there are openings after Hawaiians who meet the criteria have been offered admission.

The lawsuit was brought by an unidentified non-Hawaiian student who was turned down in 2003.

The appeals court wrote that the school's admission policies are illegal because they operate "as an absolute bar to admission of those of the non-preferred race."

Kamehameha Schools has said it will appeal. An injunction asking the court to order the school to accept the teenager for the fall term is pending.

At the Honololu rally, Gov. Linda Lingle, introducing herself as a "haole" and "a non-Hawaiian," said the court's decision was "not just."

"The Hawaiian people have been tested many, many times," Lingle said. "This is just one more test that you will show you will overcome."

Amber Marquez, 17, a senior at the school's Kapalama campus, said Kamehameha has given her a future.

"We are just trying to preserve what little we have left because everything is being taken away," she said. "We just deserve this; we feel blessed."

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On the Net:

Kamehameha Schools: http://www.ksbe.edu/

[Paige]

Aweeeeee Multiculturalism isn't excepted by the Rule of Law in America? Aweeeeeeeeee

[Porterville]

Prisons shouldn't be what they are today... It is a shame you don't see that... but that's changing- along with liberals and communist, abusive pro-federalist attitudes are being destroyed as well.

The old style of heavy handed behavior is dead. It is not economical. But hey, there are always people like me looking for ways of making money off of the economic-waste of babyboomer philosophies... so keep philosophizing.

[Porterville]

wrong post... sorry about that, I thought this was the prison thread.... :)

[BurbankKarl]

Welcome to the 60s, Hawai'i

[BurbankKarl]

Maybe China could buy them....but they have no oil.

[dfwgator]

Statehood...ain't it a bitch?

[GoodWithBarbarians JustForKaos]

A private non tax funded institution should be free to omit or reject whomever they please IMHO. But, today we have a double standard. It's surprising to see this ridiculous affirmative action BS applied to non-whites. I'd bet if there was a privately funded whites-only school, these same protesters would be on the other side of the issue!

[dfwgator]

You hit the nail on the head, purely anti USA and whitey. Those people hate us with a passion.

But they love our tourist dollars.

[HawaiianGecko]

 

 

	You couldn't be more wrong. I'm all for private schools or private companies or private anything running their organizations as they see fit. I personally think that Hawaiians (I own property there) need to stop sending liberals to Washington (notice that Lindel (R) is on their side). Anyway, it's the darned ACLU and liberal way of thinking that has defined nearly any action as being discriminatory, and now maybe Hawaiians will awaken to this fact. Governments need X amount of dollars. If you are not collecting taxes on the at least 10% per year of income that the fund is making (or about $600,000,000.00) at a corporate tax rate of 35% (about 195,000,000.00) the regular taxpayers are making up the $195M difference. So me posting that the Kamehameha trust fund is tax exempt is your evidence that I'm a liberal in league with George Soros? I'm laughing so hard it just can't be healthy!

!

 

You couldn't be more wrong. I'm all for private schools or private companies or private anything running their organizations as they see fit. I personally think that Hawaiians (I own property there) need to stop sending liberals to Washington (notice that Lindel (R) is on their side). Anyway, it's the darned ACLU and liberal way of thinking that has defined nearly any action as being discriminatory, and now maybe Hawaiians will awaken to this fact.

Governments need X amount of dollars. If you are not collecting taxes on the at least 10% per year of income that the fund is making (or about $600,000,000.00) at a corporate tax rate of 35% (about 195,000,000.00) the regular taxpayers are making up the $195M difference.

So me posting that the Kamehameha trust fund is tax exempt is your evidence that I'm a liberal in league with George Soros?

I'm laughing so hard it just can't be healthy!

 

 

 

[so_real]

Here is a successful, Christian based school teaching kids about the importance of their heritage while not costing you all a god d--- dime.

Beautiful! As I said in another post, we shouldn't be complaining about them, we should be emulating them.

[dila813]

you better believe it

[GoodWithBarbarians JustForKaos]

Is purchased property stolen??? I think your 100% figure might be off by a tad or so. LOL

[HawaiianGecko]

 

 

	Read my post you little 10 cent moron. I said they were tax exempt in response to your post. I didn't say I was against the K school.  In fact I didn't say I was for it either. I'll tell you now that I am in favor of the Kamehameha schools. I sent all four of my kids through private schools and my two oldest grandchildren are in private school.  I obviously like private schools. My point is that Hawaii has consistently sent liberal democrats to Washington.  The same liberals that are trying to ruin private schools.  It's only poetic justice that the liberal's affirmative action programs are biting the Hawaiians in their collective liberal butts. Maybe they will start voting Republican for their national congressmen like they did with Governor Lindel. You sir, flamed me for simply saying that they are tax exempt, which happens to be a fact. Yes it is very interesting to watch someone like yourself make a complete *ss of himself. Some more of your post says: "So tell us once and for all how your public schools in Hawaii are doing a much better job than the K schools. And that it actually costs less tax dollars for your public schools to operate than the amount of tax we are not gaining as a result of the KS tax exemption." Why would I say the public schools in Hawaii are better than the K schools? My post didn't say that at all. You are simply making crap up. Go back and re-read it you dork. Where did I write that it actually costs less tax dollars for public schools? Your are either illiterate, doing drugs or simply PO'd at the world.  No rational person can construe a post of only one sentence that says they are tax exempt and stretch it into all of the crud that you are attempting to paint me with.

!

 

Read my post you little 10 cent moron. I said they were tax exempt in response to your post. I didn't say I was against the K school.  In fact I didn't say I was for it either. I'll tell you now that I am in favor of the Kamehameha schools. I sent all four of my kids through private schools and my two oldest grandchildren are in private school.  I obviously like private schools.

My point is that Hawaii has consistently sent liberal democrats to Washington.  The same liberals that are trying to ruin private schools.  It's only poetic justice that the liberal's affirmative action programs are biting the Hawaiians in their collective liberal butts. Maybe they will start voting Republican for their national congressmen like they did with Governor Lindel.

You sir, flamed me for simply saying that they are tax exempt, which happens to be a fact. Yes it is very interesting to watch someone like yourself make a complete *ss of himself.

Some more of your post says:

"So tell us once and for all how your public schools in Hawaii are doing a much better job than the K schools. And that it actually costs less tax dollars for your public schools to operate than the amount of tax we are not gaining as a result of the KS tax exemption."

Why would I say the public schools in Hawaii are better than the K schools? My post didn't say that at all. You are simply making crap up. Go back and re-read it you dork.

Where did I write that it actually costs less tax dollars for public schools?

Your are either illiterate, doing drugs or simply PO'd at the world.  No rational person can construe a post of only one sentence that says they are tax exempt and stretch it into all of the crud that you are attempting to paint me with.

 

 

[dennisw]

One poster says most students have very little Hawaiian blood so the whole situation is absurd and not a real leg-up and charity for Hawaiians which was the original intent. At this point this 6 billion dollar trust should benefit all Hawaiians and not just Hawaiians with a few drops of native blood. I'm sure a few genuine natives attend these schools but the bulk of students have just a bit of Hawaiian native ancestry.

[RightWingAtheist]

I was under the impression that most native Hawiians are now pretty much the Pacific equivalent of mestizos, being a mixture of the indigenuous peoples with the white, black and Asian arrivals. When we visited there, the tour guide, a very nice and jovial guy, pointed his own ancestry, being mostly Native Hawiian with some French, Irish and Chinese, and his wife was Hawiian, Chinese, and English.

[fish hawk]

That is because the Native blood is diluted out over the years. There are very few full blooded Hawaiians left now. And also do not forget that although 6 billion is a lot of money, it came originally from a Hawaiian princess and made profits over the years that do not belong to the Government but to the Estate. Should not they be able to do what they want with it as long as it is legal?

The way I see it as I do is because, being Indian, when I go home to the Rez next month and dance in the ceremonial dances, I don't want a white non-indian standing next to me dancing in our dance. And I don't was a government telling us that we have to let him dance with us. That does not make me any more unpatriotic than you, it just protects our "rights". Many of my tribe has died in battle defending the USA in the past and will keep on doing so in the future.

[Paige]

NO Problem...but hey I'm blonde and blame it on blonde moments! lol :)