Trust may face demands

By Jennifer Hiller
Advertiser Staff Writer

Native Hawaiian leaders, Kamehameha Schools alumni and activists gathered last night in an effort to unite in opposition to the decision to admit a non-Hawaiian student to the Kamehameha Schools Maui campus — and to deal with larger challenges facing the Hawaiian community.

Native Hawaiian leaders, alumni and activists met at the University of Hawai'i Hawaiian Studies Center to discuss the admission of a non-Hawaiian student to Kamehameha Schools. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

Among the recurring themes at the meeting, attended by about 80 people at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa Center for Hawaiian Studies, were: trustees should resign; others responsible for the decision should be fired; trustees need to tell the truth about the decision-making process; and Hawaiian groups and agencies should organize to form one front.

Lilikala Kame'elehiwa, director of Hawaiian Studies at UH-Manoa, said now that the anger is subsiding, the community should come together to make a plan of action.

"We're all in this together," said Pohai Ryan, a 1980 graduate of Kamehameha Schools. "Can we start there?"

Some suggested Statehood Day, Aug. 16, as a day to present a list of demands to Kamehameha Schools trustees and offer positions on issues that range from threats to Hawaiian Home Lands to federal recognition for Native Hawaiians. Others wanted to create a list of demands immediately to take care of issues with the Kamehameha Schools admissions policies and procedures.

But everyone seemed to agree that the admittance of a non-Hawaiian to the Maui campus represents more to the Hawaiian community than an issue with one student on one campus.

"If we don't fight it here we will leave nothing for our children to fight with," said Jon Osorio, a professor of Hawaiian studies.

Also yesterday, Kamehameha Schools announced that the charitable trust will hold six months of statewide community meetings starting next month on the issues raised by the admission of a non-Hawaiian student at its Maui campus.

The meetings starting next month will be open to the public, CEO Hamilton McCubbin and board chairman J. Douglas Ing said.

School trustees have apologized for poor communication and said admissions procedures to the elite campuses must change, but have remained tight-lipped about exactly how that will happen.

They also have said they are protecting the trust's tax-exempt status, and the decision to admit the non-Hawaiian student will stand.

Some members of the CEO's advisory board said the group met Wednesday evening, where trustees disclosed that they had struggled with the decision to admit the non-Hawaiian student for four months.

Many alumni and others have grown outraged at the time it took for trustees to disclose their decision, and have accused the trustees of betraying the promise of Bernice Pauahi Bishop's 1884 will.

Na Pua a Pauahi, an alumni group instrumental in organizing the 1997 protests that ultimately led to the replacement of previous trustees, have written a position paper on the issue, telling trustees to reverse the Maui decision if they can and to embrace the needs of the Native Hawaiian community.

Former Kamehameha Schools trustee Oswald Stender also met yesterday with Ing to present a critical seven-page letter that compares the current trustees to the previous board that was forced out in disgrace.

Last week's announcement marks the first time since the 1960s, when children of Kamehameha faculty were allowed to attend, that a non-Hawaiian has been admitted to any of the campuses on O'ahu, the Big Island or Maui.

McCubbin said the Maui campus did not receive enough applications to keep pace with the growth of the campus this year from 272 students to 592 students in the fall semester.

The Bishop Estate was established in the 1884 will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, who sought to create a perpetual, private, charitable trust to run Kamehameha Schools. Preference would be given to the indigent, orphans and those of "pure or part aboriginal" blood.

Estate trustees have steadily defended the school's mission in the face of challenges to its Hawaiian-preference admission policy, and it has been upheld by the IRS in the past.

Toni Lee, alumni association president, said she thinks that most Kamehameha alumni represent a silent majority who back the board, even if they are upset about the way the decision was made and announced. The anger displayed at a Monday alumni meeting doesn't reflect the entire Kamehameha community, she said.

"Lilikala got students from university to stack the room," Lee said. "It opened up pandora's box. Every person who has been disgruntled for years stood up."

Staff writer Walter Wright contributed to this story.

Reach Jennifer Hiller at jhiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8084.