Kamehameha Schools 1 Kamehameha Schools
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Kamehameha Schools 1 Kamehameha Schools Kamehameha Schools Seal of Kamehameha Schools I Mua Kamehameha Forward, Kamehameha Address 1887 Makuakāne Street Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, 96817 United States Information Type Independent Primary and Secondary Religious Nondenominational Protestant affiliation(s) Established 1887 Founder Bernice Pauahi Bishop [1] [2] Headmaster Earl T. Kim (Kapālama), Stan Fortuna, Jr. (Hawaiʻi), Lee Ann DeLima (Maui) Grades Preschool to 12 Enrollment 6,715 Campus Kapālama, Maui, Hawaiʻi Campus size 600 acres (2.4 km2) (Kapālama), 180 acres (0.73 km2) (Maui), 300 acres (1.2 km2) (Hawaiʻi) Color(s) Blue White Song Sons of Hawaiʻi Fight song I Mua Kamehameha Athletics conference Interscholastic League of Honolulu Division I Mascot Warriors Accreditation Western Association of Schools and Colleges Newspaper Ka Mōʻī Yearbook Ka Naʻi Aupuni Distinctions Largest endowment of all secondary schools in the United States. At the end of the 2011 fiscal year, the endowment was estimated at $9.06 billion. [3] Website www.ksbe.edu Kamehameha Schools, formerly called Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate (KSBE), is an educational school designed to educate the children of Hawaiʻi that is designed to serve students from preschool to Twelfth. It focuses on an excellent education both in English and Hawaiian as well as teaches the children the Hawaiian culture and practices. It operates 31 preschools statewide and three grade K–12 campuses in Kapālama, Oʻahu, Pukalani, Maui, and Keaʻau, Hawaiʻi. Kamehameha Schools 2 Kamehameha was founded under the terms of the will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, a direct descendant of Kamehameha the Great and the last living member of the House of Kamehameha. Bishop's will established a trust called the "Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate" that is Hawaiʻi's largest private landowner. Originally established as an all-boys school on the grounds of the current Bishop Museum, Kamehameha opened its girls' school in 1894 and became coeducational in 1965. The 600-acre (2.4 km2) Kapālama campus opened in 1931, while the Maui and Hawaiʻi campuses opened in 1996 and 2001, respectively. The schools' controversial admissions policy prefers applicants with Native Hawaiian ancestry and has excluded all but two non-Hawaiians from attending since 1965. A lawsuit challenging the school's admission policy resulted in a narrow victory for Kamehameha in the Ninth Circuit Court; however, Kamehameha ultimately settled, paying the plaintiff $7 million. As of the 2011–12 school year, Kamehameha had an enrollment of 5,398 students at its three campuses and 1,317 children at its preschools, for a total enrollment of 6,715. Beyond its campuses, Kamehameha served an estimated 46,923 Hawaiians in 2011 through its support for public schools, charter schools, and families and caregivers throughout Hawaii. History In 1883, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop directed that the remainder of her estate, primarily inherited from her cousin Princess Ruth Keʻelikōlani, be held in trust "to erect and maintain in the Hawaiian Islands two schools... one for boys and one for girls, to be known as, and called the Kamehameha Schools." She named her husband Charles Reed Bishop, Samuel Mills Damon, William Owen Smith, Charles Montague Cooke and Charles McEwen Hyde as the original five trustees to invest her estate at their discretion, use the income to operate the schools, and also "to devote a portion of each year's 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 the Hawaiʻi (Kingdom) Supreme Court to appoint replacement trustees and required that all teachers be Protestant, without regard to denomination. After Bishop's death in 1884, her husband Charles Reed Bishop carried out her will. Reverend William Brewster Oleson (1851–1915), former principal of the Hilo boarding school founded by David Belden Lyman in 1836, helped organize the schools on a similar model.:46 The original Kamehameha School for Boys opened in 1887 on a site currently occupied by Bishop Museum. The girls' school opened nearby in 1894. The preparatory school, originally serving grades K–6, opened in 1888 adjacent to the boys' school. By 1955, all three schools had moved to the current 600-acre (2.4 km2) campus in Kapālama Heights. In 1996, the 180-acre (0.73 km2) campus on Maui opened, followed by the 300-acre (1.2 km2) campus on Hawaiʻi in 2001. Religious controversy In 1991, The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) brought suit against Kamehameha Schools alleging that its requirement that all teachers be Protestant was religious discrimination in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[4] Although Kamehameha Schools conceded the practice was discriminatory, the School maintained that it was bound by the provisions of Bernice Pauahi Bishop's will which established the charitable trust creating the School as well as mandating that all the teachers "be persons of the Protestant religion."[5] Accordingly, the School sought to fall within one of the applicable exemptions to the Civil Rights Act. The United States District Court for the District of Hawaii found in the School's favor ruling that the religious education exemption, the religious curriculum exemption and the bona fide occupational qualification exemption were each applicable to Kamehameha Schools. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the decision of the District Court holding that none of the exemptions to the Civil Rights Act were applicable since the School was essentially a secular and not primarily a religious institution despite certain historical traditions that included Protestantism.[6] As a result, the requirement that all teachers be Protestant was held to be a violation of the Civil Rights Act. Kamehameha Schools 3 Reorganization According to the will, the Supreme Court of Hawaiʻi appointed trustees. After the overthrow of the government and the "annexation" of the Territory, State Supreme Court assumed that responsibility However, many trustees were political insiders, and by 1997 trustees were paid $800,000 to $900,000 annually. At that time, critics alleged that the trustees were micromanaging the schools. Trustees were appointed "lead trustee" of a particular part of estate operations. In particular, Lokelani Lindsey, lead trustee for educational affairs, was blamed for low morale among students and faculty. On August 9, 1997, University of Hawaiʻi (UH) Board of Regents Chair (and former Kamehameha Schools Principal) Gladys Brandt, retired judge Walter Heen, Msgr. Charles Kekumano, federal judge Samuel Pailthorpe King, and UH William S. Richardson School of Law professor Randall Roth published a report titled "Broken Trust" in the Honolulu Star Bulletin which, among other things, called on the State Attorney General to fully investigate KSBE management. 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 responsibilities • the trustees were not accountable for their actions. On August 12, 1997, Governor Ben Cayetano directed Attorney General Margery Bronster to perform a preliminary investigation into the allegations. 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." Another essay appeared in November, with Brandt, UH Professor Isabella Abbott, respected Hawaiian cultural educator Winona Beamer, and others as authors. Its headline was "Tyranny, distrust, poor decisions reign at Kamehameha". The investigation continued through 1998, 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 Hawaii Probate Court to run the estate. Bronster had been re-appointed by Cayetano who was a Democrat, and since twenty-three of the twenty-five senators were Democrats, some political observers thought approval of Bronster's renomination would be assured. However, the investigation proved costly for Bronster, whose confirmation was defeated by the Hawaii State Senate on April 28, 1999 by a vote of 14-11.:256–257 Things finally started to change when the US Internal Revenue Service retroactively revoked Bishop Estate's tax exempt status for the trustees breach of duties and unlawful use of tax exempt charitable trust assets for political lobbying, triggering about $1 billion in back taxes and penalties.:254 Jervis resigned permanently on August 20, 1999. The trials for permanent removal of the remaining three trustees were set for 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. Many of the court files relating to Bishop Estate were ordered sealed citing the need for "closure and healing.":281 The replacement Bishop Estate trustees continued to use the same attorneys and law firms as their predecessors. Deputy attorneys general tried to explain to the replacement trustees that these attorneys and law firms either provided flawed legal advice or stood by silently while they ignored good advice. Some claimed "there had been no thorough housecleaning; instead, the old guard had been put in charge and handed the keys.":268 In 2002, the Hawaii Supreme Court threw out the criminal indictments against three Bishop Estate trustees on procedural grounds and ruled no new charges could be brought.[7] In 2005 two of the authors of the newspaper series published a book about the issues in this investigation. In 2009, after a large decline in the endowment, trustee compensation ranged from $97,500 to $125,000 per year, and trustees Kamehameha Schools 4 turned down any pay increases.