by Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.

A new webpage at
https://tinyurl.com/y8cny7ew
focuses on a diabolical technique whereby Kamehameha Schools (Bishop Estate) is now aggressively using its vast wealth (perhaps $15 BILLION) to enlist public and private schools and colleges as accomplices in racial segregation and also as partners in pushing race-supremacist curriculum not only to ethnic Hawaiian students but to all their students. Institutions in Hawaii and also mainland USA are being infected.

For about a century KSBE has ruthlessly enforced a policy of racial segregation in its admissions policy for full-time students from kindergarten through grade 12 on all of its campuses, except for a handful of students admitted to settle or forestall desegregation lawsuits. The funny thing is that the racist admissions policy is NOT required by the Will of founder Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, and was not in place in the school’s early years — it is a policy adopted by the trustees for their own political reasons, presumably related to facilitating ethnic pride and ethnic nationalism.
Despite propaganda to the contrary, the Will of KSBE founder Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop does NOT require a policy that only racially-defined Native Hawaiians can attend — even the mere “preference” for “children of the aboriginal blood” as set forth in Pauahi’s Will applies only to orphans and indigents, who are a small portion of the students.

The vicious tenacity whereby KSBE maintains its segregationist policy is demonstrated by the fact that in May 2007 the trustees paid SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS plus admission with full tuition for grades 7-12 to settle one lawsuit by a single student moments before the U.S. Supreme Court was poised to take that student’s desegregation case which trustees rightly feared would result in striking down the admissions policy.

The importance the trustees place on the segregationist admissions policy is also demonstrated by a decision made by the trustees at the time when scandals were capturing public attention and the IRS was investigating the corporate entity regarding its tax exemption: the trustees decided that if the IRS ever notified KSBE that it must choose between its tax exemption, worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year, or its race-based admissions policy, the trustees would give up the tax exemption to protect racial segregation.

A new webpage focuses not on the admissions policy for Kamehameha School itself, but on a diabolical technique whereby KSBE has been enlisting public and private schools and colleges as partners in racial segregation and also as partners in pushing race-supremacist curriculum not only to ethnic Hawaiian students but to all their students.

This technique allows KSBE to infiltrate and subvert the admissions policies and curricula of other schools and colleges in Hawaii and mainland USA by matching the number of dollars those other schools set aside to provide scholarships for students to pursue majors in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) — but ONLY for students who have Hawaiian blood. Most private colleges and K-12 schools have relatively small endowments, and have a limited amount of money which they can set aside each year to provide scholarships to academically well-qualified students whose families are financially needy. When KSBE now makes contractual agreements with those schools to provide matching funds but only for ethnic Hawaiians, KSBE provides a strong incentive to those other schools to take scholarship money away from students who lack Hawaiian blood in order to get extra money from KSBE. Those other schools will now be enthusiastic to recruit ethnic Hawaiians but far less eager to recruit students of other ethnicities, and will divert their limited pot of scholarship money toward ethnic Hawaiians at the expense of other races.

KSBE’s sudden announcement in December 2018 that it is focusing on STEM subjects as those are taught in other schools and colleges coincides with an announcement by University of Hawaii that its Mathematics department is now a world leader in curriculum development and teacher certification in the field of ethnomath.

What is ethnomath? It is the description of how any particular culture, past or present, has used unique culture-based ways of estimating, counting, measuring, constructing buildings, describing natural phenomena, etc. Ethnomath might study how astronomy was used for practical purposes in astrology, navigation, planting and harvesting; and learning how some cultures had priests and princes who secretly anticipated eclipses and thereby inspired awe, fear, or political revolutions. Ethnomath might create lists of the names of the counting-numbers in different cultures; comparing Roman numerals with Arabic numbers, visiting merchants in Chinatown to watch them using an abacus, analyzing the ratios found in Egyptian pyramids, the human body, and the spirals of certain plants. Ethnomath might study the temperature and speed of water flowing through a taro patch to analyze how those factors affect the health and size of the kalo (corm) and length of the ha (stalk). In Hawaii ethnomath will certainly include descriptions of how navigators on the hugely celebrated voyaging canoe Hokule’a use the positions of the stars to “calculate” which way to point the boat.

To a casual observer, STEM subjects like mathematics, biology, technology, etc. would seem to have objective subject matter not corrupted by politics, emotions, and race. These subjects are also academically difficult and demanding. Genuine Mathematics involves abstract reasoning to prove theorems, solving equations, calculus, etc., unlike ethnomath which focuses on low-level measurement and description of tangible objects used in everyday cultural activities. STEM subjects attracted few ethnic Hawaiian students who were generally more interested in studying culture-based “soft subjects” like history, anthropology, or political science; and staging political rallies; rather than keeping their noses to the grindstone in the library.

Ethnomath is a way for racialists to finally be able to invade those parts of the liberal arts curriculum that were previously safe from identity politics. So it’s no wonder that the University of Hawaii, with its huge “Hawaiian Studies” program, is proud to boast of being a world leader in ethnomath. And KSBE is happy to provide matching grants for colleges in Hawaii and on the mainland to give racially exclusive scholarships for students to major in ethno-STEM.

The detailed new webpage is entitled “How Kamehameha School bribes other schools to be partners in racial segregation” and can be found at
https://tinyurl.com/y8cny7ew