Under the settlement, lawyers for student Brayden Mohica-Cummings will drop their lawsuit challenging the school's Hawaiians-preferred admissions policy, attorney Eric Grant said. Mohica-Cummings will be allowed to stay at Kamehameha until he graduates.

The school's trustees voted on the proposed settlement this afternoon, Grant said.

It is expected that the settlement will be presented to U.S. District Judge David Ezra next week.

Kamehameha had accepted Mohica-Cummings, then rescinded the offer after discovering he had no Hawaiian blood.

On Aug. 20, Ezra ordered Kamehameha Schools to admit him, at least temporarily, until Ezra could address claims by the boy's lawyers that the Hawaiians-preferred admissions policy violated federal civil rights law.

People familiar with the case have said settlement talks began after school trustees left Ezra's courtroom Nov. 18 uncertain as to how he would rule.

The day before, U.S. District Court Judge Alan Kay had ruled in support of the admissions policy. He rejected a challenge brought by an unnamed Big Island boy, saying decisions based on race are permissible in certain limited situations.

But at the Nov. 18 proceedings, Ezra began by saying he did not intend to rule from the bench, as Kay had done.

The settlement affects only the Mohica-Cummings case. Grant and co-counsel John Goemans can still appeal Kay's ruling.

The Kamehameha Schools was created under the terms of the 1884 will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop. The private school enrolls about 4,800 students of Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian ancestry in its on-campus programs.

Ezra's ruling in August that Mohica-Cummings should be allowed into the school outraged many who claimed Santos was being rewarded for falsely claiming her son was part-Hawaiian.

The ruling also was criticized by those who said admitting Mohica-Cummings would deny a spot to a truly qualified Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian student.