Editorial
Report on Hawaiians may broaden thinking

One has to wonder about the fate of a special U.S. Civil Rights Commission report issued this week in Washington.

The report, based on hearings held in Hawai'i over the past several years, urges the federal government to forge a political relationship between Native Hawaiians and the United States.

Such a relationship may act as a barrier to lawsuits against Hawaiian-only programs that are being challenged as racially motivated and constitutionally suspect. That is, Uncle Sam can cut a deal with another political entity that might be impermissible if cut with a particular racial group.

The report of the Hawai'i Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is a legacy of the last years of the former Clinton administration. The political climate in Washington under the new Bush administration is far less sympathetic to group rights, special entitlements and racial preferences.

Those who are battling for the continued existence of programs for Hawaiians, ranging from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to the Hawaiian Home Lands program, face an uphill struggle.

While the various recommendations of the civil rights panel may not find quick or easy acceptance in today's Washington, the report can still serve an important purpose. As was clear in the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Rice v. Cayetano (on Hawaiian-only voting for OHA), Washington sees the Hawaiian struggle for self-determination in fairly specific racial terms. That viewpoint may be too narrow to deal with what is, after all, a unique situation. Hawaiians are a race, but they are also a culture and a once-and-perhaps-future nation.

If this report helps Congress and the White House look at the Hawaiian situation in broader, less restrictive terms, it will perform a valuable service.