The plaintiffs’ bid to remain anonymous presents an early legal hurdle in a case that tests how far courts will allow litigants to hide their identities in civil litigation while challenging education policies. The decision could affect the willingness of future plaintiffs to challenge policies they view as discriminatory.
A white family suing Kamehameha Schools over its Native Hawaiian admissions policy is seeking to keep their identities hidden throughout the lawsuit, citing online death threats and fears that public identification could damage their careers and educational prospects. The request comes as the case has generated intense backlash, with threats of violence directed at the lead attorney and the nonprofit organization backing the suit.
The family, referred to in court filings as B.P. and I.P., asked the court to allow them to proceed under initials rather than their full names. The decision on anonymity will be an early hurdle for the plaintiffs. Lawyers worry that having to reveal their identities will force them to drop out of the case entirely.
Threats and Backlash Escalate
The case has drawn extraordinary hostility. Jesse Franklin-Murdock, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, had his home address posted on social media. He reported receiving a package that appeared to contain feces, an incident he reported to the FBI. On social media platforms, Franklin-Murdock, an Iolani alumnus, has been compared to Captain James Cook — the explorer who died in a battle with Hawaiians — and called a Nazi, though he is Jewish.
Ed Blum, founder of Students for Fair Admissions, the organization bringing the lawsuit, said the backlash exceeds anything he has experienced in his prior cases. “But nothing compares to this case against Kamehameha Schools,” he wrote in court filings. “The torrent of threats, harassment, and other abuse that has been leveled at me … has far exceeded anything I’ve ever experienced.”
Both Franklin-Murdock and Blum have faced repeated social media posts declaring “Go Home Haole!” — a Hawaiian phrase meaning “go home foreigner.”
Franklin-Murdock wrote in a court declaration that the situation has grown dire. “The abuse stemming from this case to date is extreme even for seasoned civil-rights professionals who are used to backlash,” he stated. “For a young girl living in the community, it is intolerable.”
Some online commenters have suggested that Blum should be assassinated, comparing the rhetoric to threats made against Charlie Kirk, a right-wing political activist.
Plaintiffs Fear Professional and Educational Harm
I.P., the minor plaintiff, is a high school student living in a “small town” in Hawaii who plans to apply to nursing school. She wants to keep her identity hidden because she fears that public identification could damage her chances of admission to a nursing program. Her mother, B.P., works at a small business that “heavily depends on the goodwill of the Native Hawaiian community,” according to court filings. She fears she would lose her job if identified.
The family applied to Kamehameha but was denied admission. Lawyers for the fair admissions nonprofit wrote that even if Kamehameha Schools doesn’t already know the family’s identity from the application materials, shielding their names shouldn’t harm the school’s case because the institution is seeking an early dismissal of the lawsuit. “If they win, then exposing B.P. and I.P.’s identities now serves no purpose other than gratuitously punishing this family,” lawyers wrote.
The Case Background
The lawsuit was filed in October by Students for Fair Admissions, an anti-affirmative action group that won a major U.S. Supreme Court decision last year ending the consideration of race in college admissions. The case against Kamehameha challenges a 140-year-old policy that prioritizes Native Hawaiian applicants at the prestigious Hawaiian school.
But Kamehameha Schools argues that allowing anonymity violates court rules. The school’s lawyers contend that minors should not be shielded from the public simply because they are under 18, pointing to other civil rights cases in which minor plaintiffs used their real names. They also note that I.P. will likely turn 18 before the courts decide the anonymity issue.
The school wrote that it needs access to the plaintiffs’ identities to conduct discovery — to reach out to people who know the plaintiffs as part of their case research. “In a case where an out-of-state activist plaintiff organization was forced to go trolling for plaintiffs to manufacture a suit in line with its ideological objectives,” Kamehameha lawyers wrote, they must be able to investigate.
Kamehameha condemned the violent rhetoric but disputed that anonymity was warranted. “They have no right to be shielded from criticism for what they are doing,” school lawyers wrote in a court filing. “The public interest in this case is immense. And the public has a right to know who is attempting to employ the judicial system to effect such a fundamental reallocation of bequeathed resources from Native Hawaiians to others.”
Prior Cases Offer Mixed Precedent
How courts have handled anonymity requests in prior Kamehameha lawsuits offers conflicting guidance. In an earlier case, a plaintiff known only as John Doe remained anonymous throughout the litigation. Kamehameha kept that confidentiality after settling the lawsuit for $7 million.
But in another case filed in 2010, federal courts ruled that four non-Native Hawaiian plaintiffs could not remain anonymous. That case later stalled as parts of it were appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a 2003 case, a seventh-grader named Brayden Mohica-Cummings sued to stay at Kamehameha after being denied admission. He dropped the case after the school agreed to allow him to remain through his senior year.
The federal court has not yet set a hearing on whether to allow the current plaintiffs to use initials.
This article is based on court filings and reporting by the Associated Press. An earlier version of the source story noted that the plaintiffs filed the case anonymously and remained so without an initial court ruling. The story was updated to clarify that the current anonymity ruling presents an early legal hurdle for this case.