Bill touts tuition
waivers for Hawaiians
Despite an ongoing federal racial discrimination investigation into a tuition waiver program for 20 needy native Hawaiians, state lawmakers are advancing a bill that would give all Hawaiians either half or full tuition waivers at the University of Hawaii.
The Senate's Education and Judiciary committees approved and forwarded to the Ways and Means Committee this week a House-passed bill that would waive half the tuition for all Hawaiians and give a full waiver for those deemed financially needy.
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According to the bill, Hawaiians represent 25 percent of the students in Hawaii's public schools, but only 14 percent of UH students are of Hawaiian ancestry. Some 24 percent of Hawaiians enrolled at UH drop out within the first two years "for reasons that include rising tuition," the bill says.
University officials urged deferral of the measure, pending an internal study into possible conflicts with recent federal court rulings on affirmative action and minority programs at colleges nationwide.
"The university and the Legislature need to carefully address current legal challenges to native Hawaiian programs, the Akaka bill in Congress, alternative sources of funding and the standards set by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on the University of Michigan's affirmative-action program," said Doris Ching, the university's vice president for student affairs.
Ching also noted that under a 1995 law, the Legislature is required to provide adequate funds if it approves any tuition waivers. She estimated the cost of the current bill at up to $12 million a year.
The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights has racial-discrimination investigations under way at UH, as well as at other colleges.
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported that colleges across the country are quietly moving to open their minority programs to all students to avoid accusations of discrimination.
While last June's U.S. Supreme Court ruling upheld the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor's race-conscious admissions policies, college attorneys were troubled because it also held that colleges must not accept or reject students from programs based solely on race, the Chronicle said.
UH officials say the federal investigation focuses on the Kahuewai Ola tuition waiver scholarship for 20 students at the Manoa campus. The program requires recipients to be of native Hawaiian ancestry.
Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Colleen Hanabusa (D, Nanakuli-Makua) acknowledged that giving all Hawaiians half or full tuition might attract even more federal attention to the racial-discrimination issue.
"We're still waiting to hear some feedback on whether or not any preference given to native Hawaiians becomes racial discrimination," she said.
