Kalaheo yearbook
suit settled; 5 get
$12,000 each
By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

Five claimants each will receive $12,000 and their attorney $20,000 in a settlement of a lawsuit over a 1997 Kalaheo High School yearbook photo caption.

The settlement, reached yesterday in federal Judge Edward King's court, also requires the Department of Education to give yearbook advisers statewide racial sensitivity and racial harassment training.

Two students, both now on the mainland, the aunt of one and the parents of the other had sued the state for $14 million, alleging civil rights violations.

The photo was of three African-American students lip-synching to a love song at a school assembly. Substituted for the song lyrics was a caption saying: "I like pigs feet! I like hog mollz! Where da collard greens? Who got the chintlinz?"

Attorney Daphne Barbee-Wooten, who represented the students and families, said the students had won second prize in the song contest. A non-black student submitted the photo caption without their consent or knowledge, she said.

"So here they are winning a prize for a love song and, instead of saying they took second place, they had this remark which is derogatory toward African Americans. It was to ridicule, embarrass and humiliate them just because of the color of their skin," she said. "They (the students pictured) were shocked."

Deputy Attorney General Jon Itomura said, "We wouldn't go so far as to say what was printed in the yearbook constituted racial discrimination and was illegal.

"But we do understand that someone was offended, and the school reacted immediately, but the plaintiffs didn't think it was appropriate, or at least sufficient."

The student-claimants were Robin Wade, now a high school senior in New York City, and Myles Sanders, a high school senior in Ballwin, Mo. Wade's aunt and Sander's parents also were parties to the lawsuit.

Itomura said the DOE must implement a system to double-check proofs before they're sent out or published to ensure that no racially sensitive material gets through.

In this case, he said, the caption was taken from "Friday," an African-American movie comedy. The yearbook adviser, Kathy Okuma, wasn't familiar with the terms and believed they were the actual song lyrics, he said. Okuma must issue an apology in the two daily newspapers.

In similar cases in California, the yearbooks were recalled, Barbee-Wooten said. "In this instance, the state didn't want to recall the yearbooks. It took a lawsuit to make them admit their mistake."

The settlement requires Kalaheo High to issue a substitute yearbook page. This was done during Black History Month in 1997, but only three students took them, Itomura said.