As a white male who attended the North Carolina equivalent of Kentucky’s Governor’s Scholars Program, I can assure Brian Hancock that “reverse discrimination” is a far less ominous force than he envisions.

Judging by the sea of faces along the sidewalks of UK, reverse discrimination has yet to affect our institution, as our school certainly is not lacking in white student representation.

Moreover, when you move to Graduate level classes — particularly in the humanities — you will find they are largely dominated by white women and men (yes, including myself, who has been the recipient of numerous department and school-wide awards).

As an assistant editor of a prize-winning student newspaper at Kentucky’s flagship university, Hancock seems to have overcome the forces of reverse discrimination. Rather than taking an entitlement attitude toward the Governor’s ScholarsProgram (indeed, by his retelling of the story, he deserved acceptance to the elite program), Hancock should be grateful for the privileges he has here at the UK.

If reverse discrimination were the powerful social force that he describes, he (nor I), would not be at this university today. Though I am certainly grateful for all the privileges and opportunities UK has bestowed on me, it would be a travesty if those opportunities continued to be given to people who look just like me.