The U.S. Supreme Court won't likely rule until Monday at the earliest on whether it will accept the legal challenge against the Kamehameha Schools' Hawaiians-first admission policy.

The high court yesterday refused to accept about 200 to 300 cases, but it did not list the challenge by an unnamed non-Native Hawaiian teenager among them, according to the teenager's lawyer, Eric Grant of Sacramento.

Grant said the decision could be on the next list of cases from the high court on Monday.

He said he did not see any significance in the court not issuing a ruling yesterday in the Kamehameha Schools case.

Ann Botticelli, Kamehameha Schools spokeswoman, said the schools filed what it believes was a strong opposition against the court taking the case, but will just have to wait for the decision.

Yesterday was the earliest that the court could have issued a ruling on the case because it had indicated it had received all the legal briefs for its conference on Friday.

Grant represents the teenager and his mother who filed a lawsuit contending the policy violates federal civil rights law.

He is asking the high court to review an 8-7 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year that found the school policy did not violate federal law.

The U.S. Supreme Court has the discretion of accepting or rejecting requests to review appeals. It grants only a small fraction of the requests. Four of the nine justices must agree to hear a case before the court accepts it.

Reach Ken Kobayashi at kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com.