Posted on: Friday, January 18, 2002

Kamehameha to drop Junior ROTC

By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer

Kamehameha Schools will close its Army Junior ROTC program June 30 to protect the schools' Hawaiian-preference admissions policy from legal challenge.

It is the latest federally supported program the schools' trustees have relinquished to avoid challenges to their requirement that school applicants have Hawaiian blood.

Schools spokesman Kekoa Paulsen said the decision was "made after extensive deliberation, in alignment with the trustees' policy to uphold and protect ... the trustees' admission policy."

Kamehameha alumni contacted yesterday said they were saddened by the JROTC decision, but resigned to it.

"A lot of people in Kalihi kept time by those ROTC bugles," alumnus Roy Benham lamented.

The decision comes at a time when programs limited to persons of Hawaiian ancestry have drawn increased interest from the courts, especially after the U. S. Supreme Court agreed in 2000 with Big Island rancher Harold "Freddy" Rice's complaint that elections for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs should be open to all Hawai'i voters, not just Hawaiians.

Schools chief Hamilton McCubbin announced the JROTC decision at a campus meeting last week after trustees explored a last-ditch effort to save the program by paying for it entirely with the schools' own money.

ROTC stands for Reserve Officer Training Corps at the college level. The junior program operates at the high school level.

Paulsen said the schools "had explored other options," including a federal National Defense Cadet Corps, but found it would have "the same exposure to potential liability."

"It's not clear right now what will happen in this area of our curriculum," he said.

He said the closing of the JROTC program is a continuation of the trustees' decision "to move away from federally subsidized programs at Kamehameha Schools. ROTC was one of the last to be addressed."

Trustees have already given up federal money for lunch programs, scholarships, college counseling sessions and a drug awareness and education program. The schools had been receiving between $2.2 million and $2.5 million a year from federal sources, Paulsen said. Many of the programs will continue without the federal dollars, he said.

U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye in September asked Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shintaki to consider allowing Kamehameha to continue in the JROTC program but assume all costs. "The United States Army has been an integral part of the (Kamehameha Schools) campus since 1888," he said.

JROTC graduates from Kamehameha "have distinguished themselves through the military, sacrificed their lives in every war, and risen to key leadership positions in every branch of service," Inouye noted.

But the office of the JROTC directorate in Fort Monroe, Va., said yesterday that military lawyers believe that the law does not allow the Army to enter into any contract with an organization that discriminates on the basis of race, whether money is involved or not.

The program started at Kamehameha Schools in 1916. Today, it has 450 cadets and six instructors and is mandatory for boys in the 9th and 10th grades.

The end of JROTC was a shock to many.

"It's totally surprising," said Pohai Ryan, an O'ahu alumni chapter board member. "It would be sad to dismantle a program which has a long history at Kamehameha and has produced a lot of generals, including trustees chairman Adm. (Robert) Kihune, and retired National Guard Gen. Ed Richardson.

"But if it means preserving the institution that is founded and built for the benefit of Hawaiian children, then so be it."

Benham, past president of the schools' Oahu regional alumni association chapter, said the program still has great value for building character and leadership skills, "but there isn't much we can do."

Critics of the school "are going to go after the schools' preference for Native Hawaiians," he said.

One such critic, Kane'ohe resident Kenneth Conklin, said yesterday he was "pleased that the federal government is finally coming to its senses and is no longer going to tolerate racial segregation in the armed forces, even to the extent of Junior ROTC."

Conklin was a non-Hawaiian candidate for the OHA board after the Rice decision, but was not elected.

Reach Walter Wright at wwright@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8054.