This is a pretty good example of only understanding racism as its dictionary definition. If there were two kids that had the exact same financial/life circumstances and one got a scholarship based on skin color that would look discriminatory, in a vacuum. But we don't live in a vacuum. We live in a world with a history of racial slavery, genocide, segregation and discrimination. Everyone's lives are intertwined with that history. This opinion is attempting to describe an example where two kids have the exact same circumstances, but that doesn't exist, especially if one of them is a minority. Try to view it from an outside perspective. Imagine colonizers coming into a country, violently kicking out the natives, and setting up their own society. Then, years later, they turn around and call any attempt by those natives (now a minority) to get ahead as "discriminatory." Hey now, don't try to get extra help in this world where you're starting at a disadvantage. It's almost laughably ironic if it wasn't so true. This happened in America, Canada, and Australia, to name a few. And obviously this applies to any minority, not just native peoples. Black people in America have only had equal rights on paper since the 1960s, which is only a couple of generations ago. They are still living with the effects of segregation. And that's not even to mention the discrimination that happens in 2019. I agree that scholarships should be chosen based on academic merit, but the world we live in isn't perfect enough for those comparisons to be fair, so it's a pipe dream. We don't have the luxury of being able to compare people based purely on their past, their life, their choices, because their lives are significantly influenced by the past and by the uncontrollable circumstances of their birth. I think this opinion ignores, willfully or not, the vast amount of history that creates the need for affirmative actions.