Post #177856 by mahalomo on Sun, Aug 7, 2005 5:11 AM

On 2005-08-06 17:32, Traitor Vic wrote:
Okay. I'm still confused. Is the school (or are the schools) Private or Public? I understand that any school has a hard time getting by these days without some money from the Federal Government (Gee... Wonder why...?). Even "Private" doesn't mean, always, without Public Interest. But I haven't seen it stated in this thread or in any News Report whether this is a private school or a public school. This would (and should, of course) have a great deal of impact on how I (or anyone else who pays taxes in America) feels about the admissions policy.

I only read the case quickly, but I'll try to give a quick run-down of my understanding (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Courts have held that even private schools cannot discriminate solely on the basis of race. This school doesn't receive any federal money, and the court doesn't go into the fact that they have tax exempt status.
Instead, they base their ruling on one of the original "anti-slavery" laws from 1866, and later interpretations of it (much later, in fact - over 100 years later), and say that this law, in conjuction with later laws, amendments, and interpretations prohibits private discrimation. (Think segregation in the south by whites against blacks on the part of private people - the government has the power to alleviate that). Later, courts held that these laws protect white and non-whites alike, although it's a little unclear which of two statutes the original court based this on. Either way, this court said "whether it stems from a broad reading of section two of the Thirteenth Amendment, or a similarly broad reading of the Commerce Clause, Congress’s power to prohibit private race discrimination has not yet been seriously questioned."
So while the laws were originally written to protect blacks against discrimination, they were later interpreted to protect whites and others as well.
Native Hawaiians don't have an exemption from these laws (Native Americans have a special recognized relationship with the US government as political "nations", but Native Hawaiians do not - and this special relationship is what the Akaka bill is trying to get established). Therefore, they are treated just like any other private establishment and they fall under these non-discrimination laws.
But the idea that the government can't prohibit private discrimination isn't questioned here. Intuitively many people think private institutions having little or no connection with government are allowed to discriminate as they please, but this is not the case.