Why do conservatives keep trying to take things from everyone? Like the Students for Fair Admissions, a conservative, anti-affirmative action nonprofit based in Virginia. They’ve specifically targeted schools like Harvard and the University of North Carolina in the past. Now, as one Hawaiian woman says, they’re coming after a Hawaiian school because of its admission practices. Funding that’s meant for Native Hawaiian students is now being labeled ‘discriminatory by the nonprofit.
TikToker Lily posted her coverage of the attack on Kamehameha schools, which give preference to Native Hawaiian students. “Kamehameha is a private trust for Hawaiians, not federally funded,” Lily states. The Students for Fair Admissions has gone as far as to start a website, KamehamehaNotFair.org, and label the funding discriminatory against non-natives. Lily explains that this school was founded on the need for Hawaiian children to have educational opportunities available for them. Since then, the school has remained a “private, charitable trust,” Lily adds.
Native Hawaiians, of course, want it to stay this way. Lily says that upholding the legacy of Kamehameha is crucial. Native Hawaiians deserve this because their “lands were stolen” and their “language and culture were nearly erased.” She goes on to say that there are “systemic disadvantages native Hawaiians face in education.”
Studies have actually shown that native Hawaiian students “remain at the bottom of educational outcomes.” Kamehameha, being a private trust for its native people, ensures that all children receive the best education possible in the state. And what a surprise—a far-right conservative group feels entitled.
Lily explains it best: “It’s pretty discriminatory to demand the one major institution created specifically for native Hawaiians be dismantled. In a place where we are already the minority in our homeland.” This is a major attack on Hawaii itself and they have no right to take this away from the native Hawaiian people.
One commenter pointed out, “If this was a financially affluent, predominantly white private or charter school they’d have NO ISSUE with it. This is coming from a white educator from a red state. They HATE IT when POC have any kind of “advantage” over white people.”
Another stated firmly, “Hasn’t the US done enough to Hawaii. Leave them alone. I’m so sick of this colonizing a*s country. Give indigenous people their land back and leave them alone goodness.” It really is that simple.
