A student who claims her parents cut her off because she has a black boyfriend has raised enough money to pay her college tuition in just one day.
Allie Dowdle, who lives just outside Memphis, has received more than $13,000 (£10,500) on GoFundMe after she stated her mother and father refused to pay for her degree after discovering she was in a relationship with an African-American man.
Writing on her Go Fund Me page, the student said: “All of this because I love another human being, as I was taught to do. How could my love for another person be wrong because of his skin colour?”
The 18-year-old private school student said she has continued to see Michael secretly against her parent’s wishes.
Over Christmas, Allie wrote on the site that her parents decided to ‘no longer support my future’ after Michael approached her parents.
She wrote on the website: “Unfortunately, I will no longer be able to attend college if I cannot come up with the money somehow.”
Allie claims she received some scholarship money through financial aid but still needed at least $10,000 to cover the first year of college by May 1st.
She said:
I’ve been applying for scholarships and have tried to get a job, but I am still living under my parents’ roof because I have nowhere else to live, and my dad has done everything in his power to make the world difficult for me. I am not able to get a job because I do not have consistent transportation available.
Allie also claims her parents attempted to remove her from school organisations that ‘encourage valuing and treating people equally’.
But her dad, Bill Dowdle, has denied the allegations and told New York Daily News ‘it was never about race’.
He added that issues with interracial dating in the South meant their relationship wouldn’t have been his ‘preference’ but said he and his wife would accept whoever their daughter wanted to date.
Instead, Dowdle said he decided to cut off his daughter’s college money because she has been spoiled and ‘it became obvious that she needed to go out in the world and grow up’.
Though Allie’s GoFundMe has received more than 300 donations as of Thursday evening, some commenters said the campaign was offensive.
“Sending a white girl from a middle-class family to college is not fighting racism,” user Marissa Kizer said. “In fact, expecting to avoid work, student loans, etc. and be treated like a hero for dating a black guy seems pretty racist to me.”
Susan Martin added:
This campaign is highly offensive. Saying no to racism has nothing to do with this situation. Dating a black man and sending a privileged white girl to college who can’t get a job because her parents took away her car is absolutely ridiculous. Take a bus. This campaign is an absolute insult to the millions of people who have been supporting themselves (and their families) for years, even before they were 18.
According to MarketWatch, about 40 million Americans hold student loans and about 70 per cent of bachelor’s degree recipients graduate with debt.
