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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Saturday, August 13, 2005

Kamehameha gets extra week to file rehearing request

By Gordon Pang
Advertiser Staff Writer

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Kamehameha Schools has been granted an additional week to formally request a rehearing of the court decision that ruled the institution's admissions policy constitutes unlawful racial discrimination.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals announced its 2-1 decision on Aug. 2, giving the school until Tuesday to seek a rehearing. Kamehameha now has until Aug. 23 to make its request.

In arguing for the extension, Kamehameha attorney Kathleen Sullivan of Stanford, Calif., said the ruling raised "difficult questions" and is the first in the country to rely on federal civil rights laws to "invalidate a remedial race-conscious program of a private institution."

But lawyers for John Doe, the anonymous senior-to-be non-Hawaiian boy seeking admission to Kamehameha, opposed the extension, noting that it could delay his entry onto a Kamehameha campus. Classes at the school's Maui campus began this week; school starts next week for those attending the Kapalama Heights campus on O'ahu and the Kea'au campus on the Big Island.

On Thursday, the Doe side suffered a defeat when the San Francisco-based appeals court rejected the second request by Doe's attorneys to get him enrolled immediately.