Kamehameha Schools, the private K–12 system founded by Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop to serve Native Hawaiian children, is facing a new legal push to end its long-standing admissions preference for students of Hawaiian ancestry, reigniting fierce debate over race-conscious remedies to past injustices, cultural preservation and the limits of private institutions’ missions.
Students for Fair Admissions — the same Arlington, Va.-based organization behind high-profile challenges to race-conscious admissions at several prominent U.S. universities — launched a website and outreach earlier this month called KamehamehaNotFair.org seeking plaintiffs to contest Kamehameha’s policy, saying the preference is “discriminatory” and “unlawful.”
The organization’s founder and president, Edward Blum, in an op-ed submission to be published Tuesday in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, argued the policy effectively bars qualified children of other races and violates Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which forbids race-based exclusion in private schools.
He says his organization supports the school’s mission to educate children in Hawaiian language, culture and stewardship, especially those from modest backgrounds, but that racial preferences are neither necessary nor legal.
“SFFA recognizes that Kamehameha was founded out of love for the Hawaiian people and a determination to lift up children in need. Opening admissions to all races does not betray that trust. It honors it in a way that is both moral and lawful,” Blum wrote. “The school can keep its identity, its curriculum, and its priorities without barring children of other races.”
Kamehameha Schools’ publicly stated admissions policy states that it gives preference to applicants of Hawaiian ancestry “to the extent permitted by law,” and requires applicants who claim Hawaiian ancestry to be verified through its Ho‘oulu Verification Services.
School officials and many Native Hawaiian leaders have framed the admissions preference as a remedial measure rooted in the 1883 will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop — the last direct descendant of the Kamehameha line — who endowed the trust to reverse the steep educational and social decline she witnessed among Hawaiians and to support opportunities for future generations of her people.
Kamehameha Schools and affiliated historical materials note the institution’s origin in Pauahi’s will and its explicit aim to benefit children of Hawaiian descent.
The school responded quickly to SFFA’s outreach effort, saying its leaders have long anticipated legal challenges and were “prepared and committed to vigorously defending the vision of Ke Ali‘i Pauahi.”
With campuses on Oahu, Maui and Hawaii island and many other programs, its endowment was valued in 2024 at $15.2 billion, comprising $10.5 billion in a globally diversified investment portfolio and $4.7 billion in commercial real estate throughout Hawaii.
In a message to alumni and supporters, Kamehameha Schools said it views the latest challenge as a pivotal moment, with a national group now opposing its admissions policy. Leaders urged the school community to stay engaged, noting the institution has withstood similar tests in the past.
“Your strength and kokua will be essential in this fight,” they wrote in a statement. “We will be reaching out soon with ways you can stand with us.”
A unique institution
If SFFA follows through with a lawsuit, it won’t be the first time Kamehameha Schools has gone to court over its admissions policy.
In 2003, an anonymous student sued Kamehameha Schools, citing a 1976 ruling and alleging the school’s preference for Native Hawaiian children was discriminatory. A federal appeals court upheld the policy, but the school settled with the plaintiff for $7 million in 2007 while the case was pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Four students later challenged the admissions policy, but when the case reached the Supreme Court in 2011, the justices refused to hear it, effectively ending the lawsuit and allowing Kamehameha Schools to maintain its policy.
Native Hawaiian leaders say the threat posed by SFFA is just the latest in a long line of challenges to their institutions and ultimate survival.
Jacob Aki, a 2013 Kamehameha Schools graduate and cultural practitioner, said the school community has always anticipated a legal fight.
“We’re not surprised. It’s always been a matter of not if, but when,” Aki said. “If you want to call something ‘not fair,’ the overthrow was not fair, the seizures of our lands were not fair, the attempt to erase our language and culture was not fair.”
Aki emphasized that Bernice Pauahi Bishop’s trust was established under the Hawaiian Kingdom about a decade before the illegal overthrow of the monarchy in 1893, and that Kamehameha Schools today is entirely self-sufficient.
The unique provenance of Kamehameha — created by a private trust with an explicitly targeted mission to benefit Hawaiians — makes the case legally and politically complex.
“This is a private trust. Kamehameha Schools receives no federal or state money. It was created by a princess under the kingdom,” Aki said. Comparing its admissions policies to those at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, which also have come under fire, “is apples and oranges,” he added.
SFFA successfully challenged affirmative action policies at both of those institutions, with the Supreme Court declaring in June 2023 that their race-conscious admissions policies violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Pauahi’s legacy
The state Office of Hawaiian Affairs said in a statement that its Board of Trustees stands in steadfast solidarity with Kamehameha Schools and its enduring mission to uplift Native Hawaiians through education rooted in “Hawaiian values, identity, and aina-based stewardship.”
OHA also emphasized that “Princess Pauahi’s will must be protected. Our trusts must be respected. Our futures must be selfdetermined.”
Kuhio Lewis, chief executive officer of the Hawaiian Council, formerly known as the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, highlighted that point, speaking both as a community leader and as someone personally touched by Pauahi’s legacy.
Though not a Kamehameha Schools alumnus, Lewis said he benefited from college scholarships funded by the trust.
“This will was put in place to balance the playing field so that our people could be uplifted,” he said. “And these institutions which allow us to have that equal setting are constantly being torn down.”
Like Aki, Lewis framed the attack on Kamehameha Schools as part of a broader campaign to undermine Native Hawaiian self-determination.
“This is just an assault on Native Hawaiians,” he said. “We will stand strongly behind Kamehameha Schools and launch the most fierce rebuttal to any continued attacks on that trust.”
Both leaders stressed that the admissions preference is not a race-based program but the perpetuation of a political trust relationship.
“Hawaiians have a special political trust relationship with America,” Lewis said. “This is not DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). We are an actual political class of people, recognized through more than 150 congressional statutes.”
Aki explained that a key part of what needs to be done is helping people understand Hawaiian history, including Pauahi’s will, the trust and the unique political status of Native Hawaiians, to better understand the purpose and importance of the school’s admissions preference.
“Education is the key to liberation, right? And that’s what Princess Pauahi wanted the school to be,” Aki said.
A call to action
Support for the Kamehameha Schools mission extends to allies outside the Native Hawaiian community.
Attorney Sherry Broder, who has represented OHA and other Native Hawaiian institutions, said the case is being wrongly framed as a racial matter.
“The Native Hawaiian culture, the Native Hawaiian people, Native Hawaiian lands — these are all integral parts of our society in Hawaii,” she said. “Kamehameha Schools’ lands are the former lands of the Hawaiian monarchy. This is a private trust, and Hawaiians are a political class, not a racial classification. Just like other Native peoples in the United States, they have their own lands, their own schools.”
Broder also noted that Kamehameha’s admissions preference is not absolute.
“Their policy is a preference. It’s not an exclusionary policy. They do accept people who are non-Hawaiian,” she said.
In her view, the trust stands on solid legal footing. “They’re in a very good position to defend their programs, and I will be totally supportive of the important role they fulfill in our community,” Broder said.
Kevin Chang, executive director of the nonprofit Kua‘aina Ulu ‘Auamo, or KUA, which promotes community-based natural resources management, said the significance of Kamehameha Schools is widely recognized across Hawaii, including by non-Native Hawaiians like himself, and that its impact extends far beyond its own students.
He also acknowledged the anxiety around the latest challenge to its admissions policy.
“There’s always been fear when this kind of thing happens. This is not the first time. Except that we’re in an interesting, charged time now, so the concern is even greater,” Chang said.
Still, leaders say the latest threat is also sparking unity.
“When you start tearing down Hawaiian trusts, that is a unification call to action,” Lewis said.
Seeking support
Local lawmakers and community leaders also have mobilized to advocate for Kamehameha Schools in recent days.
State Sen. Kurt Fevella (R, Ewa Beach-Ocean Pointe-Iroquois Point) joined other lawmakers and community leaders Friday in the state Capitol rotunda for a sign-waving event to show their support and defend Pauahi’s legacy and Hawaiian education.
State Sen. Brenton Awa (R, Kaneohe-Laie-Mokuleia) and Rep. Diamond Garcia (R, Ewa-Kapolei) recently traveled to Virginia in an effort to meet with Blum and dissuade his group from pursuing litigation. The trip raised questions about whether taxpayer money was used, but Awa said both lawmakers covered their own expenses.
He said he believes he was uniquely positioned to try to reach Blum as both the Senate minority leader and one of the few Native Hawaiians in the Legislature.
The two lawmakers did not succeed in meeting Blum in person but left a message with his law office and were offered the possibility of a phone call.
Instead, they held meetings in Washington, D.C., with congressional staff and federal officials they hoped could exert influence. Among them was the office of U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who Awa said shares their concern that Indigenous groups should not be targeted.
Awa argued Kamehameha Schools’ admissions policy is essential for Hawaiians’ cultural survival.
“This challenge is an attack on Native Hawaiian rights,” he said.
Awa pointed to the near-erasure of the Hawaiian language in the 20th century and said Kamehameha Schools’ mission is to “make sure that our culture is perpetuated and not lost.”
Supporters of the institution argue its admissions framework is not an arbitrary racial preference but an essential, legally grounded exercise of its founder’s intent to address historic and ongoing disparities experienced by Native Hawaiians.
They point to the school’s expansive network of preschools, K-12 campuses and community programs aimed at cultural revitalization and educational uplift as evidence that the admissions policy is integral to a broader remedial mission.
Source: The Garden Island