October 2025 Message from the Council Chair

Aloha mai kākou,

As a graduate of Kamehameha Schools (KS), I am humbled and honored to have benefited from the remarkable vision of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop. In an act of enduring wisdom and foresight, she created an educational trust in 1887 with

the sole intent of ensuring the survival of Native Hawaiians, perilously marginalized in their own land by the colonial and foreign industrial interests determined to exploit the

islands and its sovereign people. I, along with the hundreds of thousands of Native Hawaiian beneficiaries of KS who came before me and since have experienced the uplifting and life-changing impacts of Ke Aliʻi Pauahi’s promise to her people

firsthand. Her trust memorializes and codifies that promise: to restore the stature,

health and vibrancy of a dying people through education - and that is a key differentiating point in this matter.

The public needs to understand the very heart of this issue, and to be able to draw a clear differentiation between this case and the lawsuits previously brought against some of the other elite, higher education institutions on the U.S. mainland, which do not share the same context of KS’ history and legacy. This current, politically charged offshore challenge to KS preference policy is being erroneously and unfairly framed as a matter of racial discrimination and constitutional law. In reality, the case against KS must be considered within the context of trust law. Trust law is different. It is about honoring the clear, legally binding wishes of the Grantor, the person who created the trust. Ke Aliʻi Pauahi’s will and trust clearly directed her estate to serve Native Hawaiians, and the school’s trustees are legally obligated to fulfill that purpose. Courts have rightly and consistently upheld this legal framework.

Those attempting to weaponize the Constitution are reaching beyond the legal framework that actually applies here. There is no lawsuit, what you see at present is a racist and opportunistic effort to recruit plaintiffs by playing to their emotions in what is arguably one of the most politically volatile periods in our nation’s history. If this advances to a lawsuit, it would unduly waste taxpayer resources and precipitously distract from the central truth: that Kamehameha Schools has given me, hundreds of thousands of Native Hawaiian beneficiaries, and the entire Native Hawaiian community the opportunity and kuleana to persevere beyond the injustices that our ancestors were forced to endure, and to claim the restoration of our people and our lands as Pauahi wished. For these reasons, I believe it’s important that we unite as a community to stand firm against this current challenge to KS’ preference policy and, on principle, prevent outsiders now and into the future from interfering with and undermining the mission, terms, and outcomes of her unique trust.

Mahalo,

Tommy