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HAWAII PACIFIC
DECEMBER 2014
PEOPLE & PLACES Hawaii Baptist Academy hosts Legacy Awards Night Honolulu—Hawaii Baptist Academy hosted its inaugural Legacy Awards Nov. 8 at the Dan Liu Gymnasium. The awards ceremony, dinner and silent auction helped raise funds for HBA’s scholarship programs and recognized individuals who have made lasting contributions to God’s work in Hawaii. “We wanted to create a new event that would welcome our alumni back to our campus and recognize our outstanding teachers, alumni, and other key members in our `ohana who have paved Photo by Derrek Miyahara for Island Digital Imaging. the way to make HBA the exceptional Col. Stan Sagert, who passed away in Jan- continues to encourage others to live school that it is today,”said Carole uary at the age of 93. (Nakama) Masaki, development officer. each day passionately for God. “It just seems with every passing day, I The most esteemed award is the Life“We all have a block of time and we am more amazed by my Dad. He did so time Legacy Award, which is given to don’t know if it’s short or if it’s long, so those who have made a lasting impact on much with his life, at HBA, in the miliwe have to make the best of the time we tary and in his church. Along with my HBA’s history through extraordinary have. Willie Nelson has a song that says, service. That award was presented to H.P. mom, he really changed many lives,” ‘Gee, ain’t it funny how time slips away?’ Obermeyer said via email. and Mary McCormick, Col. Stan Sagert Thirty-six years slipped by really fast, but Sagert retired from the military in and Joyce Wong. I felt the call, I felt the urgency to make 1970 to become president of HBA. Under The McCormicks were Southern Bapthat time count. I feel very satisfied in his leadership, the school made remarktist missionaries in Nigeria for 20 years retirement, and God has affirmed that able advances in campus expansion, cur- tonight,”Wong said. before they were transferred to the U.S. riculum offerings, enrollment, and Territory of Hawaii in 1947 to start a Eight other individuals were also recdonor support, while maintaining its Christian school. The school opened in ognized. Kiyo Itokazu and Stanley Togievangelical mission. 1949 with 36 students in grades seven kawa received the Distinguished Service “My father was so sincere in his love and eight. HBA now has more than 1,000 to the Community award. for Christ and his love for HBA, but he students in kindergarten through high Itokazu was a member of HBA’s first was also very humble. This award comes school. graduating class. He served as a pastor, from the people who were his friends On behalf of the McCormicks, grandarmy chaplain and chaplain for Kuakini and loved him and worked with him for son Martin Daughtry accepted the Medical Center. Currently, he teaches many years through the lean times and award. Adult Sunday School at Waialae Baptist the good times—that is what makes this “This award is evidence that my Church, leads the senior adult ministries grandparents’ work was not in vain. It’s a award so special to my family,” said with his wife, Laura, and ministers to Obermeyer, a middle school teacher in really humbling thing for me to come bereaved families. and see what wonderful things have hap- Marble, Texas. Togikawa was a minister at Olivet The fourth recipient of the Lifetime pened from the labor that they put in so Baptist Church for 18 years and assisted Legacy Award was Joyce Wong, a retired many years ago,” Daughtry said. in HBA’s business office. He is the presifaculty member who taught at HBA for Daughtry, an associate professor of dent of the Shiraki Memorial FoundaEthnomusicology at New York University, 36 years beginning in 1960. In 1975, Mrs. tion, which has provided scholarships to Wong and her sociology class put into visited HBA’s campuses for the first time more than a thousand Hawaii seminary practice Christ’s love by sponsoring a in November. During his acceptance students since 1973. The Shiraki FoundaVietnamese refugee family and helping speech, he recalled his mother’s stories tion is also the largest local benefactor of them transition to life in Hawaii. In the about HBA’s humble beginnings in army Hawaii Baptist Academy. late 1980s she began teaching Bible barracks. Mori Hiratani and Carl Kinoshita classes, where her students learned how Kristin (Sagert) Obermeyer accepted accepted the Distinguished Service to the Lifetime Legacy Award for her father, to apply God’s word to their lives. Wong God award, which honors those who
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physical hardship at work or lose their jobs because they are having a baby.” Lenora Lapidus, director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, said, “Employers and courts nationwide still aren’t getting the message that the same temporary accommodations provided to injured workers must be provided to pregnant workers. The Supreme Court must make it clear that this type of discrimination is unlawful.” Ovide Lamontagne, AUL’s general counsel, told Baptist Press it is important to understand “the policy behind the Pregnancy Discrimination Act isn’t just the workplace but it’s also a public statement to support women so they make the decision to keep their children, not to have an abortion.” “If women aren’t given the kind of protection in the workplace that the Pregnancy Discrimination Act gives them, they’re more likely to feel like they have no other choice in order to keep their jobs, in order to preserve their economic status than to seek an abortion,” said Lamontagne. The question of disparate treatment of Young as compared to other
UPS workers with physical limitations comprised much of the discussion by justices and lawyers during the oral arguments. After she became pregnant, Young, a delivery driver in Maryland, provided UPS with notes from a doctor and midwife saying she should not lift more than 20 pounds. A manager told Young this would prevent her from performing the basic actions of her job for UPS, which had a 70-pound lifting requirement. The manager also said Young was ineligible for light-duty work. As opposed to its policy for pregnant employees, UPS provided light-duty work to workers injured on the job or disabled as well as those who lost their commercial drivers’ licenses from the Department of Transportation. Caitlin Halligan, a New York City lawyer representing UPS, told the justices there is “no dispute at all” that UPS did not provide accommodations to people with off-the-job injuries. Samuel Bagenstos, a University of Michigan law professor representing Young, said, however, there are examples on record “of people with off-the-job injuries or illnesses who were DOT decertified who were given accommodations, and not just accommodations that remove them from
driving but also remove them from heavy lifting. That’s a factual dispute that has to go to trial.” The case did not go to trial in federal court. Instead, a judge ruled for UPS in a summary judgment. A three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., unanimously upheld the lower court’s decision, ruling that UPS had devised “a pregnancy-blind policy.” The portion of the PDA discussed the most in oral arguments says, “[W]omen affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions shall be treated the same for all employmentrelated purposes ... as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work.” The law, Bagenstos told the justices, says, “[E]mployers have to treat pregnancy-related conditions as favorably as they treat non-pregnancy-related conditions.” The Department of Justice also argued on behalf of Young. Donald Verrilli, solicitor general, said the point of the law “is to reduce the number of women who are driven from the workforce or forced to go months without an income as a result of becoming pregnant. ... [Employers] can’t draw distinctions that treat pregnancy-related
fulfill the vision of HBA through their service in full- or part-time ministry. Hiratani served as chair of the HBA board for two terms and was appointed to a special Committee of Three with Allen Au and Sagert to oversee the development and financing of the Pali Campus. The committee served for nearly three decades. Kinoshita served on the HBA Board of Directors and is a member of The Aloha Council. He established the Carl and Hatsue Kinoshita Scholarship Endowment Fund at HBA. Dr. Rebecca “Ruby” Sanchez Ovitt and Maurine King received the Distinguished Service to HBA award. Ovitt served 41 years as principal of HBA’s elementary school. In 2005, she oversaw the accreditation of the elementary campus by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. King also taught at HBA’s high school for 52 years. The Distinguished Alumni award was presented to Rick Tsujimura and Winona (Au) White. Tsujimura is a lawyer for Ashford & Wriston, LLLP. He has worked in multiple government offices, including Deputy Attorney General. Currently, he is the chair of the Board of Governors at the East West Center and the U.S. Board of Global Hope Network International. He participates on the advisory board of the Geneva Institute for Leadership and Public Policy. White is a Human Resources Executive with more than 25 years of experience. In February she was named Vice President of Human Resources for Kamehameha Schools. White serves on the HBA Alumni Association board and volunteers for the Athletic Booster Club. Last year, her family established the White Ohana Scholarship Endowment Fund at HBA. Her daughters, Taylor, 11th grade, and Emily, 8th grade, attend HBA. Is there someone who has impacted your life at HBA? Nominate him/her for the 2015 Legacy Awards starting Dec. 15 at www.hba.net/legacy. medical conditions worse than other conditions with comparable effects on ability to work.” Associate Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg challenged Halligan’s arguments for UPS. PDA “was supposed to be about removing stereotypes of pregnant women as marginal workers,” Kagan said. “...what you are saying is that there’s a policy that accommodates some workers, but puts all pregnant women on one side of the line. And what you are further saying is that the employer doesn’t even have to justify” such a policy. AUL’s Lamontagne was hopeful about Young’s chances of winning after observing the arguments. Because of the factual dispute, the high court could remand the case to the federal court for a trial, Lamontagne told BP, but he thinks the justices may simply rule in Young’s favor. UPS has announced it will put into effect Jan. 1 a more favorable policy for pregnant employees. An opinion in the case, Young v. UPS, is expected to be announced before the court adjourns early next summer. (BP) Tom Strode is the Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press.