Once considered a dying language, ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi (the Hawaiian language) has made a powerful resurgence in recent decades, thanks in large part to the proliferation of Hawaiian immersion programs at schools across the State. In 2019, the Hawaiʻi State Supreme Court strengthened these programs in Clarabal v. Department of Education, which held that the State of Hawaiʻi has a constitutional obligation to make all reasonable efforts to provide access to Hawaiian immersion education. This Note argues that the Clarabal court adopted a framework of reparations in its reasoning, derived from the act of “looking to the bottom”—or uplifting and centering the voices of the “bottom” marginalized group.

The Clarabal court adopted the collective memory of injustice advanced by the “bottom” when it explicitly situated its reasoning within the context of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and subsequent decades of de jure language suppression, while constantly referencing Native Hawaiian sources and scholarship. In adopting this “bottom” perspective, the court ultimately provides a remedy— education programs designed to preserve and protect ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi— that functions as a form of cultural reparations. The Clarabal opinion serves as an example of the type of reparative jurisprudence that is necessary to provide tangible restitutive benefits to historically victimized peoples.