The U.S. Supreme Court could issue a decision as early as next Monday that would either leave Kamehameha Schools elated over the end of the legal challenge to its Hawaiians-first admission policy or set the stage for the most significant high-court ruling involving Native Hawaiians in years.

The Supreme Court will be deciding whether to take the Kamehameha case. A decision not to take the case would let stand an earlier ruling in favor of Kamehameha Schools and its 120-year-old admissions policy. A decision to hear the case would lead to a Supreme Court ruling by summer 2008 on the legality of the admissions policy that favors Native Hawaiians.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held by an 8-7 vote that the policy does not violate federal civil rights law.

But if lawyers for a non-Hawaiian teen who sought admission persuade at least four of the nine Supreme Court justices to agree to hear the case, the high court is likely to issue a ruling that will be the most monumental for Native Hawaiians since its Rice v. Cayetano decision seven years ago.

At issue is a challenge by an unnamed teenager to how students are admitted to the private, nonprofit institution, established to educate students of Hawaiian blood and address educational disadvantages of the state's indigenous population.

The legal briefs have been submitted for the justices to consider at a conference Friday, and the court will disclose, starting on Monday, which of the appeals from lower courts it will accept.

School officials have been reluctant to say how they would comply with any ruling to drop the Hawaiians-first policy, which supporters say is at the heart of the institution.

"We are concentrating on defending the admissions policy that is currently in place," schools spokeswoman Ann Botticelli said.

The emotional issue is of huge importance to the Native Hawaiian community.

When a three-member panel of the 9th Circuit ruled 2-1 in August 2005 that the policy violated the federal civil rights law, thousands of Kamehameha supporters marched in protest around the state. The ruling later was overturned by a larger "en banc" court panel of 15 appeals judges in December last year.

Eric Grant, the Sacramento lawyer representing the teenager who was rejected for admission at the schools and is now attending a four-year college, said he believes he has a "good" chance that four justices will agree to hear the case, but neither he nor others on both sides of the issue want to make a definitive prediction.

The high court accepts only a small fraction of requests to review lower-court rulings, but experts said it's difficult to say whether the justices will take the case.

"The fact of the matter is, nobody really knows," said state Attorney General Mark Bennett, who supports Kamehameha Schools' admission policy and will be filing a brief on behalf of the state if the high court accepts the case.

Kamehameha Schools, the largest private landowner in the state, was established in 1887 under the will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop. It serves nearly 5,000 of the more than 70,000 Native Hawaiian schoolchildren at the flagship Kapalama Heights campus and in schools on Maui and the Big Island.

In his legal brief, Grant cites the high court's history of decisions prohibiting the "separate but equal" argument for segregated schools dating back to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954. He argued that Kamehameha Schools' position that non-Native Hawaiians can get an adequate education elsewhere is creating a new standard for schools: "separate but adequate."

Kamehameha Schools have contended the case does not have any nationwide impact, one of the standards the justices use for accepting cases. The schools' lawyers defend the appeals court ruling and argue that its decision deals with a private school with a unique history. They contend the schools' mission is supported by Congressional actions providing educational and other benefits for Native Hawaiians.

The schools' lawyers also argue that prior high-court rulings outlawing discrimination by private schools did not deal with the issue of "remedial" admissions for disadvantaged minorities.

The case has drawn friend-of-the-court briefs by the Center for Equal Opportunity, a nonprofit group in Sterling, Va., that opposes affirmative action and race-based programs, and Earl Arakaki and nine other Hawai'i residents who have opposed government funding for programs exclusively for Native Hawaiians in another case.

Both urge the court to accept the admissions case. Hawai'i's Congressional delegation filed a friend-of-the-court brief asking the court to reject the appeal.

In the Rice v. Cayetano case, the justices issued a 7-2 decision that threw out a state law that excluded non-Hawaiians from voting for Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees. The justices said the law was a violation of the Constitution's 15th amendment protections for voting rights.

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., a private attorney at the time, was hired by the state to defend the OHA voting policy and argued the case before the high court.

The 2000 ruling spawned other challenges to OHA, however. The unnamed non-Hawaiian teenager also filed the challenge to Kamehameha Schools' admission policy in the wake of the Rice decision.

Grant said he has no qualms about Roberts participating in the Kamehameha case because of the passage of time and the fact that different parties are involved in the admissions case.

"Just because justices have said something on similar issues does not disqualify them under the law," Grant said.

Robert Klein, a former Hawai'i Supreme Court justice who is the board counsel for OHA, said the briefs urging the court to take the case tried to focus on persuading the conservative justices. Roberts, Klein said, is a conservative justice and his position on the OHA case might not appeal to him now, given his conservative background.

Like the others, Klein won't make a prediction on what the justices might decide.

"I don't think anybody can say, 'Oh, yeah, definitely this is a case they will (accept) or the other way,' " he said.

JOHN DOE V. KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS

Legal briefs have been submitted for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether to hear a case involving Kamehameha Schools' Hawaiians-first admissions policy.

A teenager identified only as John Doe is asking the high court to review and overturn a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that held by an 8-7 vote that the policy does not violate federal civil rights laws.

Here are some points raised in the briefs:

JOHN DOE

Congress has agreed that racial discrimination in schools violates "fundamental public policy."

"Given that policy, this court cannot give the final say to a lower court that has interpreted the nation's oldest civil rights law to sanction the system of racially segregated schools operated openly by respondents. If not overturned, that interpretation would sanction racially exclusive private schools for any group that could point to 'significant imbalances in educational achievement.' "

KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS

The appeals court complied with prior U.S. Supreme Court rulings in issuing an "exceedingly narrow" decision.

The appeals court considered the "unique history of Kamehameha Schools, the special trust and political relationship between the United States and the Native Hawaiian people, and the particular statutory context in which Congress has repeatedly enacted express and exclusive preferences for Native Hawaiians. This factual and legal backdrop is too similar to give rise to an issue of national importance warranting this court's review."

CENTER FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

The nonprofit group, which opposes race, ethnic and gender "discrimination" by public and private organizations, cites two 1976 U.S. Supreme Court cases.

In Runyon v. McCrary, the court held that federal civil rights laws cover two private secondary schools that denied admissions to two black students.

In McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation, the court held the law covers two white employees who were fired for stealing when a black worker was not fired.

"Given the Ninth Circuit's clear and unjustified departure from this court's decision in Runyon and McDonald, the court may wish to consider summary reversal." The group urges a high-court review.

EARL ARAKAKI AND 9 HAWAI'I RESIDENTS

The group and its attorney, H. William Burgess, also have challenged government money to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

"Racial tensions in Hawai'i are simmering. The Supreme Court must say firmly and soon, that the U.S. Constitution and its promise of equal protection of the laws for every person, applies with full force in Hawai'i and especially to the giant tax-subsidized charitable public trust that has corrupted and dominates Hawai'i's government." The group urges a review.

HAWAI'I'S CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION

U.S. Sens. Daniel K. Inouye and Daniel Akaka and Reps. Neil Abercrombie and Mazie Hirono say Congress has provided benefits to Native Hawaiians since the 1920 Hawaiian Homes Commission Act and is now considering the Akaka bill confirming a political relationship between between the United States and Native Hawaiians.

"As these issues continue to be debated in both Houses of Congress, (the delegation) urge the court to defer consideration of issues involving Native Hawaiian preferences, public or private, pending legislative resolution of these significant questions of policy." The delegation opposes a high-court review.

— Ken Kobayashi

Reach Ken Kobayashi at kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com.