A Honolulu resident is taking the state to federal court over who gets a shot at homestead land, targeting a century‑old rule that decides eligibility by ancestry.
The new class‑action lawsuit goes after the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act’s 50 percent Native Hawaiian blood‑quantum cutoff, the threshold that controls who can even apply for Department of Hawaiian Home Lands homestead leases. The plaintiff says that rule blocked him from applying online and unlawfully parcels out public land based on ancestry.
Federal Lawsuit Filed
The case was filed June 1 in U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii. It lists Honolulu resident Eric Ryan as the plaintiff and names Hawaiian Homes Commission chair Kali Watson, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and the United States as defendants.
The complaint seeks declaratory and injunctive relief and argues that the ancestry‑based eligibility requirement violates the Constitution, according to Pacific Legal Foundation.
What The Plaintiffs Say
Pacific Legal Foundation is representing Ryan pro bono and says he hit a wall at the online pre‑qualification stage after indicating he is not 50 percent Native Hawaiian. In other words, the case alleges he was denied even the chance to get in line.
The group’s news release frames the lawsuit as a straight‑up constitutional challenge to ancestry‑based restrictions and describes its view of the trust’s structure and acreage at stake; the organization laid out those arguments in more detail in materials posted by Pacific Legal Foundation.
DHHL Response And The Waitlist
DHHL chair Kali Watson has blasted the lawsuit as “an attack” on the Hawaiian Homes trust and says the commission, together with the state Attorney General’s office, will fight to protect the program.
Watson has pointed to the thousands of beneficiaries who rely on the trust and a long queue of would‑be lessees. DHHL materials indicate there are more than 29,000 names on the waiting list, and the department’s own application page spells out the 50 percent blood‑quantum eligibility rule and required documentation, as outlined on DHHL.
Legal Stakes And Precedent
The complaint argues that ancestry‑based classifications face the highest level of judicial scrutiny and notes that the Hawaii Admission Act ties homestead lessee qualifications to federal law. That linkage is one reason the Secretary of the Interior is pulled into the case, according to Pacific Legal Foundation.
Courts have wrestled with similar ancestry‑based rules in Hawaii before, most prominently in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Rice v. Cayetano decision, which struck down ancestry‑based voting limits for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. That ruling, archived by Cornell Law School, is widely expected to shape how lawyers on both sides frame their arguments here.
What This Could Mean Locally
If the challenge succeeds, it would rewrite the rules for who can access homestead leases and could force DHHL to rethink how it moves beneficiaries off a waiting list that can stretch for decades.
Hoodline has previously detailed DHHL’s recent push to speed up awards with “paper leases” and other tactics meant to chip away at the backlog; see earlier coverage of that strategy in its “paper leases” push and DHHL’s waiting‑list materials.
For now, the case sits in the early procedural phase on the federal docket. Upcoming scheduling decisions and any motions from the defendants will dictate how fast the constitutional questions reach a judge. Attorneys on both sides say they are gearing up for a long haul, with DHHL vowing to defend the trust and the lawsuit framed as a major constitutional test in coverage by Hawaii News Now.
