Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate

Kamehameha Schools violates the principle of equal rights under law by limiting admission to the school to only those students who can prove that they are of Hawaiian ancestry.

Although the school benefits from a federal tax exemption as a 501 (c) (3) school on the hundreds of millions of dollars of annual income that it earns from its multi-billion dollar endowment, and it claims on its federal tax return that it does not discriminate in admissions, its newspaper ads specifically state that it gives preference to students of Hawaiian ancestry and requires proof of that ancestry.

And, in fact, in recent years only one non-Hawaiian student has been admitted to the school, and that admission caused such an uproar on the part of Hawaiians that the school pledged not to admit any other non-Hawaiians in the future. The school would appear to be operating in violation of federal law.