Commenting on his office’s lawsuit against the Trump administration’s travel order, Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin accused the administration of wanting “a system where there are certain ‘races’ that are going to be presumptively in a second-class type of environment, and there will be a ‘superior race’ that is running everything.”
As noted above, there are reasons for rejecting Chin’s claims about the Trump order. But since Chin raises the issue of racial discrimination, it’s worth noting that the state of Hawaii has been pursuing its very own Jim Crow set-up for decades. Today, the state’s Office of Hawaiian Affairs distributes scholarships, loans, grants, and low-interest leases based on racial identity. See HERE
Even worse, the state’s elected officials have for years supported the creation of a tribal government, elected only by those who can prove they have the right blood in their veins, and which is exempt from portions of the Constitution. See HERE
When the effort to advance that goal in Congress failed, the Obama administration took up the cause by issuing regulations that laid out how tribal status could be established for native Hawaiians. That effort was halted by the Supreme Court in November 2015 because it was clearly unconstitutional. See HERE
