$29,065 Grant to Support Native Hawaiʻian Students with Admissions Prep Classes & Tutoring for Firstt-Year Students
(Honolulu, Hawaiʻi) - The Office of Hawaiʻian Affairs (OHA) approved funding a $29,065 grant to the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa to address the under-representation of Native Hawaiʻians in the legal profession. The grant will support Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) preparation classes for Hawaiʻian students aspiring to apply to law school and provide academic assistance to Hawaiʻian undergraduate law students with tutoring in the basic first-year courses.
"We are very grateful to OHA as this grant will support programs that are very important to our law school and especially important to the accomplishment of our mission," said Dean Avi Soifer. "An integral component of our mission is to serve the people of Hawaiʻi and to provide opportunities for a legal education to students from groups that are under-represented in the bar."
The proposal to OHA represents two key components of a program that the ’Ahahui o Hawaiʻi (the Hui), the Native Hawaiʻian Law Student Organization at the William S. Richardson School of Law, is developing to actively recruit Native Hawaiʻians to attend the law school and to provide academic assistance to students once they enter law school. The Hui, founded in 1973, is the oldest student organization at the law school and raises significant issues of concern to Native Hawaiʻians at the school and in the community. The Hui’s mission is "to accept and fulfill our kuleana by providing a safe and respectful forum to discuss issues from a Hawaiʻian perspective in a way that is pono."
The grant will provide Native Hawaiʻian students with LSAT preparation classes and tutors for first-year law students in the following courses: Civil Procedure I and II, Contracts I and II, Criminal Law, Real Property I, and Torts I and II.
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The University of Hawaiʻi Foundation, a nonprofit organization, raises private funds to support the University of Hawaiʻi System. The mission of the University of Hawaiʻi Foundation is to unite donors' passions with the University of Hawaiʻi’s aspirations by raising philanthropic support and managing private investments to benefit UH, the people of Hawaiʻi and our future generations www.uhfoundation.org.
