Every September marks the start of Hawaiian History Month, and this year’s begins with news of the Trump administration potentially seeking to strip Kamehameha Schools of its tax-exempt status.
It’s part of an attempt to target programs that encourage diversity, equity and inclusion. In early September, the IRS proposed new rules that would revoke tax-exempt status for schools that provide aid to students based on race.
HPR reached out to Kamehameha Schools for comment and received a statement saying that it was reviewing the proposal.
To learn more about what impact this could have for the school and its $15.8 billion endowment, according to its annual report, HPR spoke with Avi Soifer, the former dean of the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.
“I think it's not going to go anywhere, in part because there will then be lots of arguments about private schools, including religious schools or schools that were once religious and are no longer religious, but they never said that they wanted to give up their tax exemption,” Soifer explained.
“So I don't think this is going to go anywhere as a practical matter. If it did, it is blatantly a denial of rights covered by the 14th Amendment, and one could argue by the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was the model for the 14th Amendment.”
Understanding the rippling legal ramifications that such a decision for Kamehameha Schools would have outside the school is why Soifer remains confident that the proposal will not go through.
“If it did go through, it obviously would be of concern for Kamehameha Schools, and for all of us. It should be a concern, because where do they come off making this kind of policy?” he told HPR.
“I think the number of private entities that would be hurt by this are so many and so loud in some ways, so influential, that it's just unlikely to go anywhere.”
This story aired on The Conversation on Sept. 16, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
