The Kamehameha Schools community is breathing a huge sigh of relief after yesterday's U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' 8-7 decision that the school's admissions policy, which favors Native Hawaiians, passes muster under federal law.

As welcome as the institution's reprieve may be, the waiting game is not over. Neither should be Kamehameha's recent drive to "extend the reach" of the schools to help the indigent children whose welfare is at the heart of its mission.

The "en banc" decision reconsidered a ruling by a smaller panel that had swung the other way; it essentially holds that the admissions policy does not violate a 19th-century law barring racial discrimination in contractual agreements. The contract in this case is between parents and a school, coming to terms over the education of children.

The court has accepted Kamehameha's contention that the school's saving grace is its remedial purpose, to correct an educational imbalance hindering Hawaiians created by political and social upheaval more than a century ago.

"It is precisely this manifest imbalance that the Kamehameha Schools' admission policy seeks to address," the court wrote in the majority opinion. "The goal is to bring Native Hawaiian students into educational parity with other ethnic groups in Hawai'i."

Kamehameha has had a checkered history where that goal is concerned. It has lagged for decades in meeting its mandate, at first because the founding Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop estate was land-rich but cash-poor. Then beneficiaries drew the short straw because the estate's management seemed to focus more on real estate investments than the schools.

In the past decade, however, Kamehameha's delivery of educational services has improved markedly. That is a trend that must continue — even accelerate.

The U.S. Supreme Court could decide to take the case on appeal within the next year. If the school wants to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court that remediation is the justification of its policy, the outreach effort, which would benefit non-Hawaiians as well, must be seen as an unwavering commitment.

One of the dissenting judges even suggested that the relevance of the contractual law might be weakened if Kamehameha becomes even more overtly a charity. Tuition-free education for its beneficiaries is an approach trustees might consider.

In the meantime, the courts have grasped, albeit by the narrowest margin, the schools' unique historical circumstances. The princess' beneficiaries must celebrate that.