Review of “Broken Trust”

Earlier on this blog, I discussed the book Broken Trust: Greed, Mismanagement & Political Manipulation of American’s Largest Charitable Trust by Samuel P. King (Judge, U.S. District Court for the District of Hawai’i) and Randall W. Roth (professor, University of Hawai’i School of Law) which discusses the problems arising from the Bishop Estate.

Paul D. Carrington (Professor of Law, Duke University) has recently published a review of this book, Testamentary Incorrectness: A Review Essay, 54 Buff. L. Rev. 693 (2006).   Here is the conclusion of Prof. Carrington’s review:

The “Hawaiian Renaissance” continues to present difficult questions for Trustees of the Kamehameha Schools. The aims of the testatrix are now lost to view and have been replaced in much of the public’s mind by somewhat contrary aims that invite not only racially-based opposition, but may evoke continued resistance in state and federal courts and in the Internal Revenue Service. True, the Princess is still celebrated as the sacred progenitor of the program, but that almost seems unjust to her memory, if anyone should care about that. Meanwhile, those of us who have no responsibility for dealing with the abiding issues enumerated above, can be grateful to the authors for providing us with a penetrating view of how fiduciaries can be placed in such a woeful pickle by twenty-first century racial politics.