Protesters outside Kamehameha Schools today opposed attendance at the school by a boy from a hanai Hawaiian family but without Hawaiian blood. Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

But their angry message was clear to each arriving student and parent who drove by the gate of the Hawaiians-preferred institution on the first day of middle school: Brayden Mohica-Cummings was not welcome.

The fierce reaction from the protesters came after yesterday’s court order by U.S. District Judge David Ezra to temporarily allow 12-year-old Brayden — who is not Hawaiian — to attend the school. The Kaua'i boy is a boarder and arrived at his dorm yesterday afternoon. Today was his first day as a seventh-grader at the Kapalama campus.

Brayden had been invited to attend the school, established under the will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop to educate Hawaiian children, after a summer program last year. When school officials subsequently questioned blanks in his application, his mother, Kalena Santos, told them that her hanai, or adoptive father, was Native Hawaiian.

The protesters, who began at 6:30 a.m. today, questioned Santos’ statements.

"What kind of example is she setting, said Pualani Kauila, a part-Hawaiian grandmother. "If we don’t stand out here for our kids, what kind of example are we setting?"

Their presence drew some loud support as parents and bus drivers leaned on horns, cheered or flashed shakas. At first, campus security told them to get off school property, but headmaster Michael Chun spoke with the group and allowed them to stay, said organizer Mehana Ka'iama, a 20-year-old who graduated from Kamehameha Schools in 2001.

Ka'iama said school officials will be protecting Brayden against any backlash from classmates "like the Secret Service."

"I don’t know how the kids will treat him, but they will have every right to resent him," she said. "Every one of them knows someone who got rejected from the school."

School officials could not be reached for comment today.

Kamehameha sophomore Ka'ili Crabb, 15, said Brayden will never blend into the student body.

"Everyone is going to be searching him out," she said. "I don’t know why his mother would put him through all this, knowing how people feel."

Just how his first morning went was not clear to outsiders. His attorney, Eric Grant, called Brayden’s mother, who told him that everything was going smoothly when she took him to the campus yesterday.

They met the dormitory staff and met with officials about schedules, he said. Just as they finished, the eighth-graders arrived and Brayden met the older student assigned to be his "big brother." Every seventh-grader gets one.

"He’s a kid from the Big Island and he gave him a big hug," Grant said. "They hit it off just great."

Grant said Santos, who returned to Kaua'i today, was not worried about her son or the other students.

"In fact, she felt very warmly received," he said. "She felt they were being very sincere."

The protesters vowed to continue arguing their case.

"This is only the beginning of our battles," said Manu Ka'iama, as everyone held hands in a circle for closing prayers and "Hawai'i Aloha."

"If you are not angry now, you should start to get angry," she said.

The school should have openly defied the court order and not allowed Brayden to attend a single day of classes, said Ka'iama, who is Mehana’s mother and directs the Native Hawaiian Leadership Project at the University of Hawai'i. She graduated from Kamehameha Schools in 1978.

"It is not his birthright," Ka'iama said. "They should stand in contempt of court and let the federal government decide. Let them shut down the school."