Kamehameha Schools

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Kamehameha Schools
Name

Kamehameha Schools
Address

567 South King Street, Suite 200
Town

Honolulu, Hawai'i
Established

1887
Community

Urban
Type

Independent Primary and Secondary
Religion

Protestant
Students

Coeducational
Grades

Preschool to 12
Accreditation

Western Association of Schools and Colleges
District

Kalihi
Subdistrict

Alewa Hts.
Nickname

Warriors
Mascot

Warrior
Colors

Blue and White
Motto

Imua Kamehameha
Military

No current affiliation. United States Army JROTC (1916 - 2002).
Newspaper

Ka Mo‘i
Yearbook

Ka Na‘i Aupuni
Distinctions

Largest endowment of all independent schools in the United States. At the end of the 2006 fiscal year, the endowment was valued at more than $7.7 billion.[1]
Website

Link
Email

Link
Seal of Kamehameha Schools

Kamehameha Schools, formerly called Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate, is a private co-educational college preparatory institution in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, serving over 6,500 students from pre-school through the twelfth grade. Kamehameha Schools was established in 1887 under the terms of the last will and testament of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, a direct descendant of Kamehameha the Great and last of the House of Kamehameha. Bishop's will established a trust currently called the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate, the largest private landowner in the State of Hawaiʻi. Income from the trust is used to operate the schools.

The schools' controversial admissions policy gives preference to Native Hawaiians, and has effectively excluded all but two non-Hawaiians from attending since 1965. A legal challenge to the schools' admissions policy is currently being litigated in the United States federal courts.

Contents

[edit] Campuses and governance

Kamehameha Schools operates three campuses. The main campus is located on Kapālama Heights, overlooking downtown Honolulu and Honolulu Harbor. It serves 5,398 students K-12, including 550 boarding students from the neighbor islands. There are two additional campuses on the islands of Hawaiʻi and Maui. These two campuses serve a combined student body of 2,200. In addition to the three campuses, Kamehameha Schools operates thirty-two preschools throughout Hawaiʻi. The preschools serve over 1,000 students statewide.

Kamehameha Schools is administered by the five-member Board of Trustees of the Estate of Bernice Pauahi Bishop. The 1999 reorganization prompted the creation of a plan that would limit micromanagement by the Board of Trustees. In response to that need, day-to-day operations are currently managed by an appointed Chief Executive Officer who is invested with autonomy over educational matters.

Bishop's original bequest consisted of 375,000 acres of land worth around $474,000. As of the end of the 2005 fiscal year, the Kamehameha Schools' endowment was US$6.8 billion. As of the end of the 2006 fiscal year, the Kamehameha Schools' endowment was US$7.7 billion. Approximately 25% of the Endowment Fund is in real estate and 75% in financial assets. [1] When compared against the endowment funds of major U.S. colleges and universities, the endowments of only five schools (Harvard University, Yale University, Stanford University, Princeton University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology) exceed that of Kamehameha Schools. [2]

[edit] Early history

In 1883, Bernice Pauahi Bishop directed that the remainder of her estate be held in trust "to erect and maintain in the Hawaiian Islands two schools...one for boys and one girls, to be known as and called the Kamehameha Schools." She directed her five trustees to invest her estate at their discretion and use the annual income to operate the schools, and also:

...to devote a portion of each years income to the support and education of orphans, and others in indigent circumstances, giving the preference to Hawaiians of pure or part aboriginal blood...

She also directed:

  • that replacement trustees be appointed by the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court, and that they be Protestants, and
  • that all teachers be Protestant, without regard to denomination. [3]

After Mrs. Bishop's death in 1884, her husband Charles Reed Bishop started work in carrying out her will. The original Kamehameha School for Boys was established in 1887 on the site which is currently occupied by Bishop Museum. The girls' school was established in 1894 on a nearby campus. By 1955 both schools moved to their current 600 acre (2.4 km²) headquarters in Kapālama Heights.

[edit] Reorganization

Before 1997, the KSBE trustees were appointed by the Hawaiʻi State Supreme Court. Many of the Bishop Estate trustees that were appointed in recent history were also former government leaders. Commissions paid to the trustees in 1997 were about $800,000 to $900,000 annually.

At the same time, there were allegations by some at Kamehameha Schools that the trustees were micromanaging the schools. Duties among the trustees were divided so that each trustee would be a "lead trustee" overseeing a particular part of the estate's operations. In particular, trustee Lokelani Lindsey, lead trustee for educational affairs, was blamed for low morale among students and faculty.

On August 9, 1997, UH Board of Regents Chair Gladys Brandt, retired judge Walter Heen, Msgr. Charles Kekumano, federal judge Samuel King, and UH professor Randall Roth released a report titled "Broken Trust," which, among other things, called on the State Attorney General's office to fully investigate the management of KSBE. The report alleged, among other things, that:

  • the method of selecting trustees (appointment by the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court) was flawed,
  • the trustees did not fully understand their fiduciary responsibilities, and
  • the trustees were not held accountable for their actions. [4]

On August 12, 1997, Governor Ben Cayetano directed Attorney General Margery Bronster to perform a preliminary investigation into the allegations against KSBE. In her report on September 10, 1997, she found that "the rights of the beneficiaries may be at substantial risk," and that there were "credible allegations that the intent of Bernice Pauahi Bishop is not being implemented." [5]

This investigation continued through 1998, and reached its climax when Bronster sought the permanent removal of Lindsey and fellow trustees Richard Wong and Henry Peters. On May 6, 1999, after a six-month trial, Lindsey was permanently removed as trustee (Lindsey later appealed her removal). A day later, trustees Wong, Peters, and Gerard Jervis were also temporarily removed. The fifth trustee, Oswald Stender, voluntarily resigned. An interim board was appointed by the Probate Court to run the estate in the meantime.

The investigation also proved to be costly for Attorney General Bronster, whose renomination to her post was defeated by the State Senate on April 28, 1999 by a vote of 14-11.

Jervis resigned permanently on August 20, 1999. The trials for permanent removal of the remaining three trustees were set on December 13, 1999. Wong offered his permanent resignation on December 3, 1999; Peters did the same on December 13; and Lindsey voluntarily resigned on December 17.

[edit] Admissions policy

Until recently, in accordance with a century-old interpretation of the will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the Kamehameha Schools has given preference in admissions to applicants of Native Hawaiian descent "to the extent permitted by law." Special consideration is also given to orphans and "indigent" applicants. [6] Applicants wishing to claim the preference for Native Hawaiian descent need to submit evidence verifying that at least one ancestor born before 1959 is of Hawaiian ancestry. [7]

The admissions policy of Kamehameha Schools has been a subject of controversy in recent years. Because there are far more applicants claiming Hawaiian ancestry than there are spaces available, the result is a student body where virtually all the students have some Hawaiian blood and where non-Hawaiians are effectively excluded. Non-Hawaiians can be and have been admitted to the school, although this is an extremely rare occurrence. In 2002 Kamehameha Schools admitted a non-Hawaiian student to its Maui campus for the first time in 40 years. The student was admitted after all qualified Hawaiian applicants were admitted. This decision sparked protest from the Hawaiian community and Kamehameha alumni.

Kamehameha's admissions policy, and whether its provision giving preference to Native Hawaiians is a race-based exclusion that runs afoul of civil rights law, was the point of contention in two lawsuits in U.S. federal court in which Kamehameha was a defendant. One suit is still in litigation.

The plaintiff in one of the suits, filed by attorney John Goemans in August 2003, was Brayden Mohica-Cummings, a seventh-grade applicant who had been admitted to the Kapālama Heights campus after his mother, who had been adopted by a Hawaiian family, said he was Hawaiian. The school rescinded its offer when his mother was unable to document his Hawaiian ancestry [8]. Because the offer was rescinded only a week before the school year was scheduled to start, U.S. District Judge David Ezra issued a temporary restraining order requiring Kamehameha to admit Mohica-Cummings pending a final decision on the case. The case was settled out-of-court in November 2003, when Kamehameha Schools agreed to let Mohica-Cummings attend until he graduates, in exchange for dropping the lawsuit. [9]

The other lawsuit, filed by Goemans in June 2003 on behalf of an unidentified non-Hawaiian student, claimed that giving preference to Hawaiian applicants violates a federal statute prohibiting racial discrimination in private contracts. In November, U.S. District Judge Alan Kay dismissed the lawsuit, finding that Kamehameha Schools' policy served a "legitimate, remedial purpose by improving native Hawaiians' socioeconomic and educational disadvantages" [10].

In August 2005, however, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit voted 2–1 to reverse that decision, ruling the policy racially exclusionary. [11] Hawaiians and also many non-Hawaiians in the community expressed strong dismay at the decision. A protest march to ʻIolani Palace and rally on the palace grounds attracted an estimated 10,000–15,000 participants ([12]; photos), including Hawaiʻi's governor and lieutenant governor. [13]

The Ninth Circuit agreed to rehear the appeal before a 15-judge en banc panel in February 2006.[14] On December 5, 2006, by a vote of 8–7, the en banc panel reversed the earlier decision by the three-judge panel, affirming Kay's ruling. The majority of the court ruled that Kamehameha's admissions policy does not run afoul of a civil rights law, citing what it said were unique factors in the history of Hawaii, the plight of Native Hawaiians and the schools’ distinctively remedial mission, which Congress has repeatedly endorsed. The minority dissent had grave reservations, and stated that civil rights law "prohibits a private school from denying admission to prospective students because of their race", and was very skeptical of the majority interpretation of the intention of Congress towards native Hawaiians stating, "The fact that Congress has passed some measures promoting Native Hawaiian education says nothing about whether Congress intended to exempt Native Hawaiian schools from § 1981 [civil rights law]".

Attorneys for the unnamed student have appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court, which would have to initially grant the case a writ of certiorari.[15] If the case is ultimately decided against Kamehameha Schools, they would be forced to admit large numbers of non-Hawaiian students.

For a more thorough treatment of the various historical and current admissions policies of schools in Hawaiʻi, see Hawaiian schools admission policies.

[edit] External links

[edit] Notable alumni

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Endowment Figures
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