New lawsuit targets eligibility requirements for Hawaiian homes leases

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A new lawsuit is challenging the constitutionality of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

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It was filed Monday by attorneys on behalf of a man named Eric Ryan, who tried to apply for a lease, but was denied due to the 50 percent Native Hawaiian blood quantum requirement.

“The core message of this case is that it’s plainly unconstitutional for the government to benefit one group over another based on nothing more than ancestry,“ senior attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation Caleb Trotter said.

Trotter explained that Eric Ryan is a Hawaii resident who has lived here for most, if not all of his life. But Ryan is not Native Hawaiian, and was deemed ineligible when he tried to apply for a lease online, according to Trotter.

And that is where Trotter says the program is unconstitutional because of ethnic and ancestral requirements.

“We’re not trying to take lands away from anyone. We’re just trying to make sure that everyone in Hawaii who has an interest in obtaining one of these homesteads is on equal footing with qualifying for those leases,” Trotter said.

Eligibility requirements were established in the congressionally approved Hawaiian Homes Commission Act in 1921, during a time where Native Hawaiians wanted to ensure long-term land access for the declining population.

Those requirements were later carried over as a condition for statehood.

“It’s really kind of unfortunate that this individual would take on this particular effort to undermine what is a really good program,” DHHL chair Kali Watson said.

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Attorney Trotter said he doesn’t see this as another attack on indigenous land rights, but rather is an effort to ensure equal access to lands.

Chair Watson disagrees.

“I definitely consider it an attack because what he’s saying is, the trust would be dissipated by expanding the eligibility as access to our trust, resources for non-Hawaiians. Yeah, I definitely view that as an attack,” Watson said.

Both sides say they’re gearing up for a long legal battle that has potential to go to the nation’s highest court.

“We’re in an era where the Supreme Court has shown that it takes government discrimination on the basis of race and ancestry very seriously, and that it’s willing to declare those types of programs unconstitutional,” Trotter said.

Watson responded, “We’re gonna remain diligent. We’ve been working with the Attorney General’s office and we’ll take whatever steps needed to protect the trust.”

With over 29,000 names on the waitlist, Watson said the need for DHHL land and leases are still justified today, over a century since the act was established.

But Trotter said race-based requirements divide societies, and said now is the time to challenge such standards.

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