PUHI — It was an anonymous telephone caller who alerted Kamehameha Schools officials that Kapa‘a resident Brayden Mohica-Cummings does not have Native Hawaiian blood, and therefore shouldn’t get admission preference to attend the school. That was in July, said Colleen
PUHI — It was an anonymous telephone caller who alerted Kamehameha Schools officials that Kapa‘a resident Brayden Mohica-Cummings does not have Native Hawaiian blood, and therefore shouldn’t get admission preference to attend the school.
That was in July, said Colleen Wong, acting chief executive officer of Kamehameha Schools.
In August, school officials who earlier approved the 12 year old’s application rescinded it, prompting the boy’s mother, Kalena Santos, to file a lawsuit challenging the admissions policy giving preference to Native Hawaiian students.
A federal judge that same month ordered school officials to admit the boy, a seventh grader, and scheduled a hearing for Tuesday, Nov. 18 on the lawsuit, Mohica-Cummings v. Kamehameha Schools.
Mohica-Cummings’ attorneys seek permanent admission to the Kapalama, O‘ahu campus for him, plus monetary damages and the end of Kamehameha’s admissions preference policy, Wong explained while addressing Hawaiian studies students and faculty at Kauai Community College here last week.
Meanwhile, Mohica-Cummings is doing well boarding at the school, Wong said.
Kamehameha officials had been preparing for and expecting a lawsuit, she said, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Big Island rancher Freddy Rice against the state in a challenge of Native Hawaiian-only voting and candidacy for state Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee elections.
A second lawsuit, Doe v. Kamehameha Schools, scheduled for a federal-court hearing on O‘ahu Monday, Nov. 17, seeks the same ends as the Mohica-Cummings suit, filed by the same Honolulu attorneys representing Mohica-Cummings, on behalf of an unnamed boy claiming he was denied admission to Kamehameha because he is not Native Hawaiian.
Both plaintiffs will argue that Kamehameha Schools’ preference policy is illegal discrimination on the basis of race, forbidden under a 1866 federal law enacted originally to guarantee newly freed black slaves certain rights guaranteed to white citizens, Wong said.
She reiterated the schools’ stance to defend its admissions-preference policy. “It’s legally justified because of lingering effects suffered by Native Hawaiians” since Western contact in the late 1700s, Wong said.
“We believe our preference is allowable,” and will be defended “vigorously” in court, she added.
Kamehameha officials see some 80 separate bills related to Native Hawaiians passed by the U.S. Congress, including last year’s Native Hawaiian Education Act, as proof that educational programs aimed at assisting Native Hawaiians are needed, and that the schools’ preference helps fulfill that need, she said.
Wong and others feel that Native Hawaiians as a race are among the most disadvantaged of the disadvantaged minorities, citing the following statistics:
- One in five Native Hawaiian high school students is held back a grade;
- Native Hawaiian public-school children scored 11 percentage points below non-Native Hawaiians on reading tests in 2000;
- Some 40 percent of all adults in prison in Hawai‘i identify themselves as Native Hawaiians;
- Native Hawaiians make up 19 percent of the state population, but 39 percent of the people in homeless shelters;
- The poverty rate for Native Hawaiian families is more than twice that of non-Native Hawaiian families.
And a disproportionate number of Native Hawaiians are on lists of pregnant teenagers, high school dropouts, and abusers of alcohol and drugs, she lamented.
“Every child that we educate at Kamehameha has a chance to escape” from becoming one of those sobering statistics, she said.
“We believe that education is the key to the future,” she added.
“We are not blocking the schoolhouse door. We are holding it open for the children who need it most,” Wong continued.
And she acknowledged the need to do even more, as Kamehameha Schools reaches only around half of all Native Hawaiians in the state. The 50 percent not being reached are some of the ones with the most pressing needs, she said.
“The last 200 years have not been kind to Native Hawaiians.
“We’re losing our land, culture, language, pride,” said Wong, a member of the Kamehameha Schools Class of 1975 who has been employed at Kamehameha Schools for 20 years, most of that time as vice president of legal affairs.
She has been acting CEO for nearly six months.
Turning specifically to Kaua‘i, Wong said there are no plans for a Kaua‘i campus of Kamehameha Schools, though the opening of campuses on Maui and the Big Island have meant more slots at the Kapalama, O‘ahu campus for Kaua‘i students of Native Hawaiian ancestry.
Before the Big Island and Maui campuses opened up, just 15 percent of all slots at Kamehameha Schools at Kapalama were set aside for Kaua‘i students. Now, that figure is 36 percent, she said.
There are nearly 150 Kaua‘i students at Kapalama, though some Kaua‘i students who want to go there are on a waiting list.
Further, Kamehameha Schools, funded by the trust of the late Bernice Pauahi Bishop, a descendant of King Kamehameha I, does provide funding for two charter schools (both in Kekaha) educating mostly Native Hawaiian students, Wong said.
In addition, the two Kamehameha preschools on the island, at Anahola and Kaumakani, have combined enrollment of over 100. And, statewide, Kamehameha Schools has assisted with funding and other help allowing nearly 50 private preschools to gain accreditation.
Those schools serve both Native Hawaiian and non-Native Hawaiian students, she said.
Programs in the state Department of Education help both Native Hawaiian and non-Native Hawaiian children as well, she added.
Associate Editor Paul C. Curtis can be reached at pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
