Posted on: Thursday, August 21, 2003

EDITORIAL
Schools' 'preference' takes some explaining

It's way premature to mourn the death of Kamehameha Schools' Hawaiian "preference" admission policy or to assume the desegregation of the well-endowed school system is upon us.

That issue isn't likely to be resolved until later this year when U.S. District Judge Alan Kay hears a constitutional challenge to the school's admission policy. And even that case faces almost certain years of appeal.

But in the case of 13-year-old non-Hawaiian Brayden Kekoa Mohica-Cummings — who was admitted to Kamehameha Schools and then had his slot yanked a week before classes were to begin — U.S. District Judge David Ezra did what he had to do and ordered the school to let him in.

Ezra determined that the harm done to the seventh-grader if he were rejected exceeded the potential harm done to the school for admitting him. The public school he would have attended on Kaua'i started three weeks ago.

Plus, the judge concluded the boy's mother didn't deliberately mislead the school about her son's racial heritage. Kalena Santos told the school that her hanai father was Hawaiian. If that wasn't good enough, the school should not have waited until a week before school started to rescind his admission.

Mohica-Cummings was recruited by Kamehameha Schools after he attended the school's Explorations program last summer, and was obviously deemed a desirable candidate at the time.

Critics charge that he is taking up a slot that thousands of Hawaiians covet. And that's true. Perhaps Kamehameha Schools should explain exactly what Hawaiian "preference" means? Attorneys for the trust weren't able to do a successful job of that in court Tuesday when Ezra questioned the meaning of "Hawaiian preference."

We're told "preference" means non-Hawaiians can be admitted only after Hawaiians who meet the criteria have been offered slots. But with such a high demand for 4,400 slots, such openings rarely if ever occur. And when one did last year on Maui, Kamehameha Schools alumni and Hawaiian community members protested vehemently.

Given the Islands' unique history, the Hawaiians-only preference is understandable, particularly if underprivileged Hawaiian children are the main beneficiaries. After all, in her 1884 will, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop directed trustees "to devote a portion of each year's income to the support and education of orphans, and others in indigent circumstances, giving the preference to Hawaiians of pure or part aboriginal blood."

But our understanding of the will evolves. The princess also directed that the teachers "shall forever be persons of the Protestant religion," which is no longer the case.

And so, as the legal and social forces in Hawai'i continue to shift, it would be prudent of Kamehameha Schools to develop a clearer social and legal understanding of "Hawaiian preference" because, as these legal challenges suggest, it works better in theory than in practice.