544
Stevens, J., dissenting
shoes of a classification that would either privilege or penalize "on account of" race. The OHA voting qualification— part of a statutory scheme put in place by democratic vote of a multiracial majority of all state citizens, including those non-"Hawaiians" who are not entitled to vote in OHA trustee elections—appropriately includes every resident of Hawaii having at least one ancestor who lived in the islands in 1778. That is, among other things, the audience to whom the congressional apology was addressed. Unlike a class including only full-blooded Polynesians—as one would imagine were the class strictly defined in terms of race—the OHA election provision excludes all full-blooded Polynesians currently residing in Hawaii who are not descended from a 1778 resident of Hawaii. Conversely, unlike many of the old southern voting schemes in which any potential voter with a "taint" of non-Hawaiian blood would be excluded, the OHA scheme excludes no descendant of a 1778 resident because he or she is also part European, Asian, or African as a matter of race. The classification here is thus both too inclusive and not inclusive enough to fall strictly along racial lines.
At pains then to identify at work here a singularly "racial purpose," ante, at 515, 517—whatever that might mean, although one might assume the phrase a "proxy" for "racial discrimination"—the majority next posits that "[o]ne of the principal reasons race is treated as a forbidden classification is that it demeans the dignity and worth of a person to be judged by ancestry instead of by his or her own merit and essential qualities." Ante, at 517. That is, of course, true when ancestry is the basis for denying or abridging one's right to vote or to share the blessings of freedom. But it is quite wrong to ignore the relevance of ancestry to claims of
nous Hawaiians in the now United States-owned Hawaiian Islands. That trust relationship—the only trust relevant to the Indian law analogy— includes the power to delegate authority to the States. As we have explained, supra, at 531-534, the OHA scheme surely satisfies the established standard for testing an exercise of that power.
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