“About a year ago, I told my parents that I’d started dating a boy named Michael, pictured with me above,” writes Allie Dowdle, 18, of Eads, Tenn. “Hoping to share him with my family, I showed my parents his picture, and the conversation was over before it even began. My dad did not give me an option: he told me that I was not allowed to see Michael ever again. Why? Strictly because of skin color. It wasn’t a quiet ‘no,’ either. I’ll never forget the yelling my parents did, when they expressed how disappointed they were in me, that I could do so much better. I did not know what to do. I couldn’t comprehend how someone could be seen as less because of pigment. I still can’t comprehend it, and I never will be able to.”
After continuing to discreetly date Michael — reportedly a college soccer player named Michael Swift — the couple again approached Dowdle’s parents, she says, who then decided to cut her off.
“As I am 18, my parents have chosen to no longer support my future, stripping me of all my resources including my personal savings, my car, my phone, and my education and leaving me on my own to pay for college,” writes the teen, who shares that she has maintained a 4.0 GPA since ninth grade at her private school and completed a two-month surgery fellowship at a local hospital.
“Unfortunately, I will no longer be able to attend college if I cannot come up with the money somehow.” She adds that she’s received some scholarship money, and cannot find a job because she does not have “consistent transportation available.”
Although Allie clearly has a lot of supporters based on the remarkable amount of money she’s been given in just one day, her cause has also attracted a number of harsh critics, who call her campaign, titled “Allie’s Tuition – Say No to Racism,” one that is “offensive,” “steeped in privilege,” and “really insulting.”
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