Plaintiffs Faith Action for Community Equity (F.A.C.E.) and Tochiro Kochiro Kovac filed a class action lawsuit against the State of Hawaii and the Hawaii Dept. of Transportation (HDOT). Plaintiffs allege that HDOT’s policy of offering the driver’s examination in English only violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection guarantee and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s prohibition against disparate treatment in federally funded programs. F.A.C.E. is a faith-based grassroots nonprofit organization that advocates for recent Hawaiian immigrants. Tochiro Kovac is a speaker of Chuukese and has been unable to pass a written driver’s examination due to language barriers. Defendants filed motions to dismiss and also argued the plaintiffs’ claim for injunctive relief because HDOT voluntarily began offering the written portion of the driver’s examination in multiple languages. The court denied both motions to dismiss and concluded that the defendants’ voluntary cessation of the English-only policy didn’t render the plaintiffs’ claims moot.
