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Suit alleges OHA The issue of allegedly discriminatory practices at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is back in federal court after less than a month.
discrimination
The lawsuit filed on behalf
of 16 plaintiffs says the office
violates the 14th AmendmentBy Pat Omandam
pomandam@starbulletin.com
Retired attorney H. William Burgess and attorney Patrick W. Hanifin, on behalf of 16 plaintiffs, filed a lawsuit in federal court yesterday challenging the constitutionality of OHA, as well as the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act.
"We seek to end both programs," Burgess said.
Last month, U.S. Chief Judge David Alan Ezra dismissed a lawsuit filed by John Carroll, an attorney and candidate for governor who had sued to stop state ceded-land payments to OHA because it is allowed to serve only Hawaiians and was established by a discriminatory state law.
The judge said Carroll did not have standing to file this lawsuit. But Burgess believes his clients have standing.
He said if the laws that created OHA and the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands are declared invalid, the state should negotiate with homesteaders for the fee title to their lands.
U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway will hold a hearing Monday on the group's motion for a temporary restraining order to stop the work of Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.
Burgess described OHA and DHHL as "motherships of racial discrimination" because they use taxpayer money to unequally serve only one group of people: those of Hawaiian ancestry.
This violates the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment, and the laws that created both agencies should be declared invalid, he said.
Burgess added that the group seeks a temporary injunction to immediately stop these programs.
"I believe in equality for all," said plaintiff Patricia Carroll, who is not related to John Carroll. "Isn't that what our country is about?"
Sandra Burgess, another plaintiff who is of part-Hawaiian ancestry, believes the homestead program has done a disservice to Hawaiians because it did not encourage them to work and save to buy their land.
And generations of Hawaiians continue to wait for homesteads, she said.
"I think that's a real tragedy," said Burgess, wife of attorney H. William Burgess. "I think Hawaiians would be better off if they worked and saved and bought their own lands like everybody else."
OHA Chairwoman Haunani Apoliona said yesterday it is interesting to note the lawsuit comes on the heels of the dismissed Carroll case.
She said the OHA board will meet formally on Thursday to discuss the lawsuit.
She said that while the board has not taken a position on it, she expects it to be consistent with trustees' efforts to protect entitlements of past efforts.
Meanwhile, attorney Burgess represented a similar group of plaintiffs who were successful in the summer of 2000 in getting a U.S. district judge to overturn the Hawaiian-ethnicity requirement to run as an OHA candidate.
That decision prompted a few non-Hawaiians, like Kenneth Conklin, to run as a trustee to the nine-member board in the fall of 2000.
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