Bias case settled at UH med school
By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer
The University of Hawai'i has agreed to pay $52,000 and discuss ways to admit more African-Americans to the UH medical school as part of a settlement in a racial discrimination lawsuit, an attorney said yesterday.
The settlement came in a case filed by Chadd Eaglin, a student of Hawaiian and African American ancestry and a graduate of the Waiakea High School on the Big Island and the University of Hawai'i. He charged that he and other qualified local African-American applicants were denied admission to the UH medical school because of their race.
"We settled this case to provide some measure of success for Chadd Eaglin ... and to foster a dialogue for change," said Eaglin's attorney, Andre Wooten.
Eaglin applied to the medical school in 2001 and was rejected under both regular admissions and "affirmative action" programs, although several dozen non-black students with lower grade-point averages were admitted that year, Wooten said.
He was rejected again the next year, in part because he had questioned school administrators about their failure to admit any black male students, Wooten charged.
Although the school denied the charges, it agreed to settle the case and form a dialogue with local African-American doctors to discuss wider integration, Wooten said.
Eaglin recently completed his second year at the University of Missouri Medical School. The settlement money will be used to help him pay the higher, out-of-state tuition there, Wooten said.
In addition to the monetary settlement, representatives of the John A. Burns School of Medicine agreed to meet with the Hawai'i representative of the National Medical Association to discuss the school's admission policies. But the school did not agree to make any specific changes.
University of Hawai'i administration and medical school representatives could not be reached for comment yesterday afternoon.
Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.
Correction: Chadd Eaglin's alma mater was misidentified in a previous version of this story.
