Native Hawaiian tapped for high court justice’s law clerk position
COURTESY UH-MANOA
Kamaile Turcan
A lawyer from Hawaii will become the first person of Native Hawaiian ancestry to serve as a law clerk for a U.S. Supreme Court justice.
The University of Hawaii law school announced Monday Justice Sonia Sotomayor has selected Kamaile Turcan to be her clerk this summer.
The law school says this is the first time one of its graduates has been invited to be a Supreme Court justice’s clerk.
Turcan is a 1998 graduate and salutatorian of Kamehameha Schools. She earned a bachelor’s degree in integrative biology from University of California, Berkeley in 2001.
She’s currently an attorney for Pacific Islands section of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
As a clerk, Turcan’s duties will include helping Sotomayor prepare for oral arguments and helping justices decide emergency applications to the court.
66 responses to “Native Hawaiian tapped for high court justice’s law clerk position”
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This is what happens when a Hawaiian person is studious, instead of the opposite. Great achievements can be made.
You can’t help but build an insult into your praise here, can you?
You filling in the blanks, again?
Hawaiians, or most of them, continue to flourish and succeed. They are as smart and as personally ambitious as any other group. I celebrate their many successes like this and urge on more public awareness of these successes.
Celebrate as in, I’ll drink to that, allie?
Read today’s editorial article titled “Hawaiian culture can help youths”. Many of those called “Native Hawaiians” do NOT “flourish and succeed”. This successful young lady most likely has done well due to the other race(s) in her mixed race makeup.
Judging by her photo, I would say she is part Hawaiian and mostly something else, so why can’t she be described as PART Native Hawaiian instead of as Native Hawaiian?
Unless it relates to Hawaiian Home Lands and needing to be 50% Hawaiian, any Hawaiian blood is considered to be Hawaiian.
Native Hawaiian? I’d love to get a peek at her DNA test. I think they filed it next to Obama’s college transcript.
I bet you would like to keep on peeking into her?
Why is that? What makes “Hawaiian” special?
Because there’s no blood-quantum standard for determination of her genetic identity — nor should there be. Kudos for Ms. Turcan! Working with Sonia Sotomayor is an honor that any young lawyer would ascribe to achieve.
Judging by her photo I would say she is pretty hot.
What a stupid comment!
Doesn’t matter. Still can’t touch that.
mikethenovice says:
January 12, 2016 at 11:31 am
I bet you would like to keep on peeking into her?
You are an intellectually challenged brown stripe on the undershorts of this conversation.
Why all of the negativity? She is Hawaiian and thats that. We should be proud of her achievement and give her the credit that is due.
Because she looks Caucasian and not Hawaiian. One could say she is part Hawaiian but to state she is native Hawaiian just does not jive for many.
How would you describe Obama, or Tiger Woods, or Russell Wilson????
I didn’t know they are part Hawaiian too.
I’m I Hawaiian if I eat Hawaiian food?
She looks familiar. I wonder if she was raised in Nanakuli by her tutu.
Wonder if she is also the first blue eyed to be speaking Pigin English?
I doubt she speaks “Pidgin English”.
Congratulations!
Native Hawaiian? How far back? She looks as Haole aa they come.
Her grandparents told the truth by not being embarrassed, and not being ashamed of listing themselves as a proud Hawaiian on the birth certificate.
Most Hawaiians are Asian or Caucasian or both.
My puppies have blue eyes. They maybe part Hawaiian?
What a stupid comment.
well it is true..that is Hawaii. It is a real strength.
Not really, it is an accurate statement when looking at her physical characteristics.
She obviously is a one dropper. Redish hair, and blue eyes. Why call her anything?
She maybe a one drop of Hawaiian, but she is all a American citizen.
You may only have only one million, but you still are a millionaire.
She is native Hawaiian. That’s wonderful, and a proud achievement especially as she is the first person of (part) native Hawaiian blood to clerk for a U.S. Supreme Court justice. But she is also the first Richardson law school graduate to serve in that capacity. Why does that not make the headline of the article and only get a passing mention? It would be interesting to see if this woman enjoyed any “special” educational benefits by virtue of her being part Hawaiian, or if she just made it all on her own. If the latter, this should serve as a strong example to all with Hawaiian blood that they do NOT need hand outs or special treatment as they can do it all on their own. Hawaiians can continue to assert that they are a special group of people entitled to certain benefits, but in the meantime, just study hard and move forward as best as you can!
It’s alright to ask for a handout only after you first try your best.
You might consider attending KS a benefit of blood, but beyond that its hard to diminish an undergraduate degree from Bezerkley before law school. I can only imagine competition for SCOTUS clerks is intense and I don’t see someone being selected as part of an AA program. She sounds like an impressive citizen.
I agree wholeheartedly that she sounds quite impressive. A person does not get a position with SCOTUS without superior brains and ability. I do know, however, that colleges and even law schools do set aside positions for students who are from (what they consider) rural and underserved areas, poor and economically disadvantaged applicants, those of certain underrepresented races/ethnicities, etc. I’m rather doubting that this woman needed any of that, however, especially in light of having been the valedictorian of her KS class. People like Ms. Turcan should be the “stars” and role models for our youth. Instead we focus too much on pop stars, high-paid sports figures and anything that’s glitzy and blingy. Nothing wrong or criminal about any of that, but brains and intellect get obscured too much and too often.
“native Hawaiian” is 50% or more koko; Native Hawaiian is of any amount of koko. We are prisoners of the legacy of slavery in the US. Hawaiian, any one who is domiciled here. So for kupa aina, kanaka oiwi……Ms Turcan, congratulations. And by the very work she does, she is a credit to her lahui.
I couldn’t believe she is Part-Hawaiian and it shows on my birth certificate. I was just wondering how much percent of a native hawaiian is this women? Can she get Hawaiian homes since she is a native?
You and me both! She sure looks pure Haole, but if she attended Kamehameha back then, she must have qualified as a “Native”. Looks and being female helps. More Native Hawaiian males are over-represented in the criminal statistical studies.
Most “Hawaiians” are caucasian, Asian or a combination of both. Nothing wrong with racial mixtures at all. That is Hawaii. There are very few “pure ” Hawaiians.
allie, you got asian in you? 😉
Same with fair skinned Philippinies. Many of them are also either Chinese mixed or Spanish mixed.
GRS808. allie has everything under the sun. She might even be part Golden Retriever?
Terrific! Well done! Congratulations.
Congratulations to her for all her hard work its paying off.
I MUA!
Good that Kamaile is representing Hawaii well. Too bad she’s clerking for Sodimyzer. 🙁
0f course she would be congratulated about her degree from Berkeley. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t give thanks for my Berkeley education. I do wonder though about “Integrative Biology?” My second degree from Berkeley was in Biochemistry and I had an idea what that meant.
Ms. Turcan, sincere congratulations to you. Most of us are really proud of you. If you read through the comments here, some will probably hurt you. Please just try to forgive the insulting ones.
Exactly! What an achievement and you make all of Hawaii proud!
ALWAYS gonna have someone to “rain on the parade”. Just ignore the “haters”.
I agree! They should go look in the mirror and punch that person!
agree..this state is obsessed with race. I never saw this in my own state in North Dakota. Many of our native Americans are Caucasians also. As am I.
Cherokee or Chickasaw Indian.
Mandan.
Congratulations! Hawaiian or something else, why should we care that so much?
Geez. Just the other day, the SA runs an article about the disproportionate amount “native hawaiians” in foster care. There have also been articles in the past about “native hawaiians” with disproportionate numbers in other negative situations. The point is that, every time these articles appear, they seem to blame the negative issues on their “hawaiianess”. Then I see an article like this and it blows up the myth of all the “native hawaiians” blaming their “hawaiianess” on their ills. The truth is, the color of your skin has nothing to do with your success. It is all about the work you put in. Some have the misdirected notion that we all should be “equal”. The real concept is that we all have equal opportunities. It’s what you do with it that is the difference.
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Bet you she ain’t going to even mention about her being a Hawaiian back in D.C.?
Congratulations on this stellar achievement. You are bringing great pride and honor to your community, family, and yourself. I hope to see even greater exploits from you in the future. I mua!
agree..very elegant lady. Congrats to her family and to KS!
I am sure Turcan is a highly capable, dedicated, intelligent person deserving of her appointment however for her and her family to claim she is native Hawaiian is troubling for many. An analogy is similar to Elizabeth Warrent claiming she is a native American Indian. When they say the eyes are a window to a person, blue eyes, brown, almost blond hair and fair skin just is NOT a physical characterisitcs of a native Hawaiian. It is genetically possible to be an albino Hawaiian who has lost all pigment in their skin and their eyes are blue but that does not seem to be the case here. My point is if someone claims to be Hawaiian and can receive entitlements not available to others like attending private school Kamehameha with zero tuition costs, or government assistance only for Hawaiians then there should be other requirememts like meeting certain level of DNA matching based on true native Hawaiians descedants.
Neither Turcan or her family are claiming to be native Hawaiian. Drop the racist blinders and read the article. The Warren analogy is in left field.
First sentence: “A lawyer from Hawaii will become the first person of Native Hawaiian ancestry to serve as a law clerk for a U.S. Supreme Court justice.” . Turcan should demand that the Star Advertiser correct their false statement. Also Turcan and her family should publicly state why she applied then accepted free tuition at Kamehameha schools when she is NOT a native Hawaiian. The story revealed something that ‘crazy’ Ken Conklin often points out: How some and not others are given entitlements under the guise native Hawaiian or even the movement for some independent Hawaiian nation within Hawaii and the United States, and even the Hawaiian movement of stopping the 30 meter telescope on Mauna Kea. I am not racist but who are the ‘native Hawaiians’ that can receive special entitlements that only native Hawaiians can benefit from.