Court upholds school's Hawaiians-first admission policy

SAN FRANCISCO – A divided federal appeals court ruled today that a Hawaiian private school can favor Hawaiian natives for admission to help a downtrodden indigenous population.

The decision by a majority of a 15-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the court's three-judge decision that the Kamehameha Schools policy amounted to unlawful discrimination.

The majority noted that the case, brought by a white student excluded because of his race, was unique because Congress has singled out the plight of native Hawaiians as they have with Alaskan natives and American Indians.

The policy, the court ruled, "furthers the urgent need for better education of Native Hawaiians, which Congress has repeatedly identified as necessary."

Three of the dissenting judges wrote separately that civil rights law "prohibits a private school from denying admission to prospective students because of their race."

The Kamehameha Schools was established under the 1883 will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop as part of a trust now worth about $6.8 billion. Part of the school's mission is to counteract historic disadvantages Native Hawaiians face in employment, education and society.

The trust subsidizes tuition and is designed to reverse the economic and educational plight of Native Hawaiians and to help remedy some of the wrongs done during the U.S.-backed overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893.

The nation's largest federal appeals court rehears cases with larger panels if the judges agree to do so.

The decision came a day after the U.S. Supreme Court suggested during arguments in a different case that it might ban the practice of race-based admissions in public schools even if the policy was intended to create racial harmony.

The last time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a similar issue was in 2003, when the justices banned the use of rigid formulas that award points based on race for admission to the University of Michigan and its law school.

But the court that same year also permitted colleges to consider race as part of a "holistic review" of every application.

Admission to the elite school is first granted to all qualified Hawaiian students, and non-Hawaiians may be admitted if there are openings available. Only one in eight eligible applicants gets in.

There are roughly 5,400 students enrolled at the school's three K-12 campuses.

The case is John Doe v. Kamehameha Schools, 04-15044.