Citing “tradition,” a private school in the Aloha State refuses admission to whites in favor of anyone who it judges to be a “Native Hawaiian.” But things may change. The group that brought down affirmative action at Harvard in front of the Supreme Court now has its sights set on forcing equal admission policy on Kamehameha Schools in Hawaii. This is one of the latest battles over how to right old wrongs, and whether modern discrimination is the answer to historic discrimination.
Kamehameha Schools, a private K–12 system founded by the last will and testament of a one-time Hawaiian princess to serve Native Hawaiian children, is facing a new legal challenge to end its 140-year-old admissions policy to favor students of documented Hawaiian ancestry.
Bringing the challenge is a formidable enemy, the non-profit Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA). The Arlington, Virginia-based group launched a website seeking plaintiffs to contest Kamehameha’s policy, saying the preference is discriminatory and unlawful. The group asks, “Is your child barred from Kamehameha Schools based on ancestry? It is essentially impossible for a non-Native Hawaiian student to be admitted to Kamehameha. We believe that focus on ancestry, rather than merit or need, is neither fair nor legal, and we are committed to ending Kamehameha’s unlawful admissions policies in court.”
You may recognize SFFA, the organization that this summer reached a settlement with the Department of Defense ending race-based admissions at West Point and the Air Force Academy. In June 2023 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the group in two landmark lawsuits, Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina.
Those suits posed three questions, which will probably be used again in the upcoming suit against Kamehameha Schools: Can race be a factor for admission? Has the school in question violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by penalizing applicants (Asian Americans in the case of Harvard and UNC) by engaging in racial balancing, by overemphasizing race and rejecting practical race-neutral alternatives? Can the school reject a race-neutral alternative because it would change the composition of the student body without proving that the alternative would cause a dramatic sacrifice in academic quality or the educational benefits of overall student-body diversity? In short, these questions can be distilled to one: Can race alone continue to be an admission factor?
Maybe in Hawaii, where the weight of tradition and cultural reparations is being loaded up to challenge the Supreme Court decision that race-conscious admissions policies violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Kamehameha Schools frame the Native Hawaiian-only admissions policy as a remedial measure rooted in the 1883 will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last direct descendant of the original national founder, King Kamehameha. Bishop (whose name travelers may recognize from the famous Bishop Museum in Honolulu) endowed in her will a massive land trust to reverse the steep educational deficit she witnessed among Hawaiians. She specifically stated the money was to go to a school for Native Hawaiians, who at that time were either banned from the white, missionary-run schools or forced to abandon their native language and culture in order to attend.
Most Native Hawaiians trace the discriminatory practices against them all the way to 1778, the year of the discovery of the islands by the British explorer James Cook. His men, along with subsequent waves of whalers and rogues, nearly destroyed the local population through the spread of diseases like measles, smallpox, and syphilis. These were followed by Western missionary groups, stout believers who nearly wiped out the local language and forced natives to live under strict moral standards. The final straw came in 1893, when American settlers forcibly claimed the islands and arrested the last ruling royal family member in a successful bid for annexation by the United States. A sordid history, built on discriminatory, colonial practices. But what about in 2025?
Kamehameha Schools is a private institution, which says it “gives preference to applicants of Hawaiian ancestry to the extent permitted by law.” Qualifying for this preference is done through a black-box internal process run by the school itself called the Ho‘oulu Verification Service. The service not only makes the crucial initial decisions, it also “reserves the right to review ancestry status at any time if new information becomes available.” No specific criteria are publicly listed, though applicants are advised about obtaining original birth and court documents. The goal is to earn a place on the Hawaiian Ancestry Registry/Program, whose own goal is to “verify Hawaiian ancestry through biological parentage regardless of blood quantum.” One can see how it is impossible for a child with two Caucasian parents or two Hispanic parents to qualify for preference at Kamehameha Schools.
Then there is Students for Fair Admissions. Its leader, Edward Blum, in an op-ed published in a local Hawaiian newspaper, argues the Kamehameha policy violates Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which forbids race-based exclusion even in private schools. He says he supports the Kamehameha Schools’ mission to educate children in Hawaiian language, culture, and stewardship of the land, but racial preferences are neither necessary nor legal. “SFFA recognizes that Kamehameha was founded out of love for the Hawaiian people and a determination to lift up children in need. Opening admissions to all races does not betray that trust. It honors it in a way that is both moral and lawful,” Blum wrote. “The school can keep its identity, its curriculum, and its priorities without barring children of other races.”
The next step is to see how successful Blum’s SFFA can be in finding plaintiffs, students who believe they were denied admission to Kamehameha Schools based on race. This story has been covered by every local television news station. Protests in favor of the schools’ policy have been held at the state capital. The taxpayer-funded state Office of Hawaiian Affairs stated that it stands in solidarity with Kamehameha Schools—“Princess Pauahi’s will must be protected. Our trusts must be respected. Our futures must be self-determined.” Many local politicians have come out in support. Even the ACLU in Hawaii publicly supports Kamehameha.
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Against this background, Blum’s potential lawsuit faces an uphill fight to locate plaintiffs. If it succeeds, initial challenges will be filed in Hawaiian courts, unlikely to lend a sympathetic ear. It will take years, and deep pockets, to push the case as far as it will likely need to go—to the Supreme Court, as happened with Harvard. But Kamehameha Schools has deep pockets of its own (as did Harvard.) Kamehameha’s endowment was valued in 2024 at $15.2 billion, comprising $10.5 billion in investments and $4.7 billion in commercial real estate throughout Hawaii. Following the American annexation, many Hawaiian royals took possession of vast tracts of then unwanted scrap land. As development took over the islands, the land soared in value and the royals’ clients profited mightily. Today the Bishop Trust is one of the state’s largest private landowners.
As an example of how far Kamehameha Schools will go to defend its admissions policy, in 2003 a student “John Doe” sued, claiming the admissions process favoring Native Hawaiian children was discriminatory. A federal appeals court upheld the school policy (though in a dissent, one judge said the schools’ “worthy” mission nonetheless violated “the Supreme Court’s requirements for a valid affirmative action plan.”) Yet when the student sought to bring the case to the Supreme Court in 2007, Kamehameha quickly settled with him for a reported $7 million and the case was dropped. Four additional students later challenged the admissions policy, but when the case reached the Supreme Court in 2011, the justices without giving a reason refused to hear it.
Native Hawaiian affairs are the third rail of state politics, and the mission of Kamehameha School is near-sacred to its many supporters. They have the funds to fight this proposed lawsuit for as long and as hard as necessary. The onus is now on Blum’s SFFA to find a plaintiff with proper standing to sue, and then to embark on the long, upstream struggle for racial justice.
