The state of Hawaiʻi is getting ready to pay $400,000 to settle a lawsuit over Campbell High School’s failure to protect a student in the 1970s who reported that a volunteer coach raped her on a team trip to the Big Island.

In 1979, former volunteer coach Jonathan Kiaha traveled with members of Campbell’s canoe club to Hilo for a race, according to the lawsuit. At a dance for race participants, he provided alcohol and marijuana to students and raped a 15-year-old student while she was intoxicated. 

“The ‘safe’ school environment and ‘safe’ school-related activities became threatening, dangerous and grossly dysfunctional,” the lawsuit said. 

The police arrested Kiaha after the incident, and the student completed medical tests confirming the assault, the lawsuit said. But Kiaha was never prosecuted because the student’s mother didn’t want her to go through the stress of testifying in a criminal case, according to the lawsuit. 

Kiaha declined to comment on the lawsuit or accusations against him. DOE did not respond to requests for comment. 

The lawsuit was filed in 2020 — more than 40 years after the students’ trip to the Big Island — when lawmakers temporarily lifted the statute of limitations preventing adults from seeking damages for the sexual abuse they experienced as minors. The pause on the statute of limitations lasted from 2012 to 2020.

There’s no evidence that Kiaha completed a background check before working with Campbell’s canoe team, said Randall Rosenberg, who represents the anonymous DOE student in the lawsuit. It’s also unclear if DOE had policies in the 1970s requiring volunteers like Kiaha to complete background checks, Rosenberg said.

Current state law mandates that teachers must complete a background check before working for the DOE, but does not specify the requirements for school volunteers. DOE requires schools to run the names of all teachers and volunteers through the state’s Harm to Students Registry, which includes the names of public and private school employees found guilty of abuse. 

Campbell still should have taken more precautions to keep its students safe in the 1970s, Rosenberg said.  

The faculty advisor for Campbell’s canoe club had little involvement with the team and left many of the trip planning responsibilities to the students, Rosenberg said. As a result, he said, the trip lacked the proper safeguards and chaperones to keep students safe, especially when they attended the dance after the race. 

“Essentially, the person who was supposed to consider safety issues was not there,”  Rosenberg said.

Because of the lack of adult supervision on the trip, Rosenberg said, Kiaha was able to take the student away from the party and rape her on a nearby college campus. 

After he was arrested, Kiaha stopped volunteering at Campbell and does not appear to have coached any other school teams, Rosenberg said. There’s no evidence that Kiaha sexually abused other students, except for a notation in the police record that Kiaha said he was “caught this time” after his arrest, Rosenberg said.

Nearly 50 years later, Rosenberg said, his client still experiences severe stress and anxiety. 

“This has caused her a lot of trauma over the last several decades,” Rosenberg said. “She still feels that.” 

Civil Beat’s education reporting is supported by a grant from Chamberlin Family Philanthropy.