You guys are dead on with this one! My return to college a few years ago was a giant eye opener to the racial bias in our higher level educational system. Despite the less than dismal crap they tried to pass of as educational material relative to engineering, The general bias to wards giving anyone that had any other ethnic background other than "generic White guy" preference or obvious favoritism was sickening.
I am not a bigot or racial biased. In fact I had many friends and associates of many different backgrounds.
What got to me was them teasing me about my difficulties and saying "You should have had a grandparent that was any other color but white" Then our racial fairness and ethnics equality people could help you out!
The actual comment did I not bother me so much, It was the truth behind it that got to me.