High Court Strikes Race-Exclusive Voting Privilege

States may not use race or ancestry as a basis for special voting privileges, even for the purpose of righting a historical wrong against native peoples, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

The 7-2 decision struck down Hawaii’s practice of allowing only native Hawaiians to elect the trustees who administer a $300-million state fund set up for their benefit.

Speaking broadly, the justices insisted again that the Constitution demands colorblind laws. States surely cannot discriminate against members of racial minorities, but neither can they accord them special rights, they said.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy described the “equality of races” as the fundamental legal principle established after the Civil War. The 14th and 15th amendments were intended in the first instance to protect the newly freed slaves, Kennedy said, but they “grant protections to all persons, not just members of a particular race.”

In the Hawaii case, the ruling dealt only with the voting restrictions. However, the court’s broad opinion calls into question the special benefits themselves, several legal experts said. In the 1970s, both Hawaii and Alaska enacted programs to compensate their aboriginal peoples.

“I think it is inevitable these programs will be challenged now,” said Stuart Benjamin, a University of San Diego law professor whose writings on the issue were cited by the court. By treating the special benefits as a “racial” entitlement, the court cast doubt on their legality, he said.

Over the last decade, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has repeatedly rejected special benefits for minority contractors and other forms of affirmative action.

Established in 1978, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs administers a trust fund, which includes 1.2 million acres of public lands. It helps pay for scholarships, subsidized mortgages, business loans and other benefits for native Hawaiians.

They are defined in state law as “any descendant of the aboriginal peoples inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands” in 1778, when Captain James Cook landed there with the first Europeans. About 200,000 residents qualify for the benefits, and only they can vote for the trustees.

Harold Rice, a white rancher who traces his family roots on the islands to the 1830s, challenged the voting restriction as unconstitutional under the 15th Amendment, and he won a clear victory Wednesday.

“We’re very pleased the court said this system of discrimination in the voting booth is unconstitutional,” said Washington attorney Theodore B. Olson, who represented Rice. “Now he will be able to vote like other people.”

Olson said the benefits limited to native Hawaiians are suspect now as well. “The state officials are on notice. If I were them, I would be concerned,” he said.

A University of Hawaii law professor who helped defend the special programs said the state “is in for a time of turmoil.”

“I’m disappointed that the court seemed blind to the unique history of the Hawaiian people,” said professor Jon M. Van Dyke. “This clearly limits what a state can do to help its native peoples, and it will take some time to sort out the full implications.”

But the chairman of the board of trustees said he did not fear a further legal challenge. “The decision just changes the selection process to include everyone,” said chairman Clayton Hee. “The trust is not changed. It does not affect other programs that give preferences to Hawaiians. I’m not getting weak-kneed over what’s coming next.”

Significantly, the court said it did not intend to cast doubt on special benefits for Indian tribes. In 1974, the court said tribes are more like political units than racial groups, and the justices repeated that distinction Wednesday.

But Alaskan natives, like the Hawaiians, were not organized in tribes, so their preferences could be subject to legal challenge.

Kennedy’s opinion in Rice vs. Cayetano, 98-818, was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justices Stephen G. Breyer and David H. Souter said they agreed with the result.

In dissent, Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Hawaii should be praised, not condemned, for seeking “to rectify the wrongs of the past.”

In 1893, the overthrow of the native Hawaiian monarchy was aided by a U.S. minister and armed naval forces. On the 100th anniversary, Congress passed a resolution apologizing to native Hawaiians for this “illegal” intervention.

“It is a painful irony [for the high court] to conclude that native Hawaiians are not entitled to special benefits because they currently lack any vestigial native government,” Stevens said, considering that U.S. authorities helped overthrow that government in the first place.