Attorney John Goemans, best known for legal attacks on programs favoring Native Hawaiians in government agencies and at the Kamehameha Schools, died yesterday in California.

Goemans, 75, had been suffering from pancreatic cancer. He died at his sister's home in Solvang, his son Edward Kula Goemans said.

Goemans filed and prevailed in a lawsuit that challenged the legality of Hawaiians-only voting for state Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees, culminating in a ground-breaking February 2000 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in what is known as the Rice v. Cayetano case.

He also helped draft two lawsuits challenging a Kamehemaha Schools admissions policy favoring students of Native Hawaiian ancestry.

One of those cases, filed on behalf of a non-Hawaiian student identified only as John Doe, was settled in 2007 just as the U.S. Supreme Court was considering whether to hear an appeal.

Last year, Goemans revealed that the settlement paid by Kamehameha Schools in the case was $7 million.

That disclosure spawned new litigation in federal and state court here, filed against and by Kamehameha Schools.

Goemans was amused by perceptions of him that he was a white supremacist.

"I've heard people describe me as conservative, right-wing wacko," he said in a 2003 interview. "I think a lot of them would be surprised to learn that I am a left-wing liberal."

Goemans was a college roommate and longtime friend of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, and campaigned to help John F. Kennedy win the Hawai'i vote in the 1960 presidential election.

Goemans is survived by his sisters Peg Goemans, and Pat Bulger, brother, Ron Mayo and children, Edward and Kara.