By claiming that its admissions policy is a race-based affirmative action program for Hawaiians, Kamehameha Schools places itself in the ironic position of defending the very ideology that branded them as inferior people in their own land. Once Kamehameha's lawyers agreed with their accusers that Hawaiians are indeed a race, the court then placed the burden of proof on the school to prove that the policy was not racist.

In fact, Kamehameha's admissions policy has nothing at all to do with affirmative action. At its core, Kamehameha's claim is political, not racial, and it is best to eliminate the word race from the discussion altogether. Hawaiians are not a race but a nation, and this case is about defending the right of a sovereign nation to define itself, govern its institutions and to educate its children as it sees fit.

The supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power by which any independent state is governed; supreme political authority; the supreme will; paramount control of the constitution and frame of government and its administration; the self-sufficient source of political power, from which all specific political powers are derived; the international independence of a state, combined with the right and power of regulating its internal affairs without foreign dictation; also a political society, or state, which is sovereign and independent.