Hawaii lawsuit challenges blood-quantum requirement for homestead leasing

Honolulu, Hawaii; June 2, 2026: A Honolulu resident filed a lawsuit yesterday challenging a blood quantum requirement that determines eligibility for a homestead lease. Eric Ryan alleges that the law, which discriminates based on ancestry, violates the right to equal protection enshrined in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

“In the middle of a housing crisis, the government should be expanding opportunity—not denying it based on ancestry,” said Caleb Trotter, a senior attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation. “Homestead leases are a valuable public benefit, and the Constitution does not permit them to be distributed based on blood quantum.”

Ryan is a lifelong Hawaii resident who, like many others, is feeling the effects of the state’s housing shortage. When trying to apply for a homestead lease, he was denied on the basis that he did not meet a 50% native Hawaiian blood quantum.

Courts have long held that government classifications based on ancestry are no different than classifications based on race, with both triggering strict scrutiny under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments’ guarantee of equal protection under the law. That standard is exceedingly difficult for the government to satisfy, and the Hawai’i law cannot do so.

Pacific Legal Foundation represents Ryan free of charge. The case is Ryan v. Watson.