Bill > SR54

This Resolution urges the Board of Education and Department of Education to change the name of President William McKinley High School back to its original name, Honolulu High School, and to remove the statue of President William McKinley from the school grounds. The resolution argues that the school's current name and the statue were imposed as part of a political strategy to Americanize the Hawaiian Islands following the illegitimate annexation of Hawaii by the United States in 1898, a process that involved fraud and led to the subjugation and displacement of Native Hawaiians. The resolution highlights that the statue and name perpetuate a false narrative of Hawaiian consent to annexation, ignoring the significant opposition from Native Hawaiians, and that President McKinley's legacy also includes actions detrimental to Native Americans and other indigenous groups. It points to recent efforts by the Department of Education to rename schools with racially problematic origins and to incorporate content on historical injustices, citing the renaming of Princess Ruth Keelikolani Middle School as an example of healing historical trauma. The resolution also calls for public school curricula to include content on the historical injustice and discrimination faced by Hawaii's indigenous people.