State Supreme Court
upholds ’98 ruling
against UH in speech case
The state Supreme Court has upheld a $30,000 award against the University of Hawaii because the basketball team's student manager made racial slurs to a fan in 1995.
The justices decided that the student manager, Robert Wallace, son of UH men's basketball coach Riley Wallace, was an agent of the university and was acting within the scope of his employment when he made the slurs.
Justices Simeon Acoba, Steven Levinson and Circuit Judge Joel August, sitting in for retired Justice Mario Ramil, agreed that Robert Wallace's speech was not protected by the First Amendment and upheld the $30,000 award by the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission to fan Eric White.
Robert Wallace personally settled with White in 1999 and issued a public apology with the local newspapers. But the amount of the settlement wasn't available.
William Hoshijo, executive director of the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission which represented White, said the ruling supports the commission's 1998 decision and award. He said they are pleased the justices issued a strong decision.
Wallace, a student manager for the Rainbows basketball team, had called White a "nigger" toward the end of a Feb. 18, 1995, game against the University of Utah at the Stan Sheriff Center. Wallace apparently became enraged because White had been heckling the coaching staff.
The university appealed the commission's decision to the Circuit Court, then to the Hawaii Supreme Court arguing that Wallace was acting as a private individual when he yelled the slurs and that his speech was protected under the First Amendment.
Attorney Jeff Portnoy, who represented Wallace, said the Supreme Court's ruling has negative, far-reaching implications not just for the UH, but any university that has students on scholarship who perform tasks for the school.
"The implications are great the next time a football team player gets into a fight in the stands or someone in the library on scholarship gets into a shoving match," he said.
The majority opinion found that Wallace as a student manager had some responsibility for crowd control and so the university should be responsible for his actions, which were unanticipated, Portnoy said.
"We're not talking whether the student should be responsible for the conduct, but the university -- and I think that is very far-reaching -- and I totally disagree."
In their dissenting opinion, Justice Paula Nakayama and Chief Justice Ronald Moon said Wallace was not authorized by the university to control the crowd or yell racial slurs.
The deputy attorney general representing the University of Hawaii could not be reached for comment.
Wallace is now in the U.S. Marine Corps training to be a fighter pilot, Portnoy said.
White has since moved to the California.
