August 6, 2008
Contributed by Thomas Yoshida
"Confidentiality was a material term of the settlement agreement reached between John and Jane Doe and Kamehameha Schools in May 2007," said Colleen Wong, the Schools' vice president for legal affairs. "The confidentiality provision included the attorneys for both parties, and each party agreed to be held liable for breaches of confidentiality committed by their legal counsel," Wong said.
In February 2008, the Honolulu Advertiser published details of the settlement attributed to attorney John Goemans, the counsel of record for John and Jane Doe throughout the Does' four-year legal challenge. The next day, Goemans provided statements about the settlement to additional television and print media.
Following Goemans' public disclosure, co-counsel Eric Grant filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, California asking the court to declare that he has no liability to Kamehameha Schools or John and Jane Doe for breach of confidentiality in the settlement agreement. The Does then filed a crossclaim seeking to prevent Kamehameha Schools from disclosing their identities, which the Schools' never intended to do. Kamehameha Schools has asked the federal court to dismiss both claims for lack of jurisdiction.
In June 2003, plaintiffs known only as John and Jane Doe filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn Kamehameha Schools' long-standing policy of offering preference in admission to its campus programs to applicants of Native Hawaiian ancestry. Kamehameha Schools is a private institution funded by the Will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop. The policy was upheld as legally valid by the U.S. District Court in Honolulu in November 2003, and by an en banc panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2006. The plaintiffs appealed the lower-court rulings to the U.S. Supreme Court, but withdrew the appeal in May 2007 as part of the confidential settlement agreement resolving the case.
Kamehameha Schools’ policy is to give preference to applicants of Hawaiian ancestry to the extent permitted by law.
