Follow the money.
When my daughter was in middle school, she was asked to fill out a form. One question asked her race/ethnicity. She wrote down 1/2 White, 1/2 Mexican.
The teacher told her she had to choose between her mother or her father. It escalated to the principal who agreed with the teacher. My wife and I were called in and told that our daughter was disruptive to insist of defying the teacher.
It turned out they wanted our daughter to say she was Mexican. They were 2 students away from meeting a certain threshhold for a special pot of Federal money when school reached a certain level of Hispanic. It was big money in the millions for the School.
Follow the money.
Hypodescent is a principle rule of slavery. Your story proves racism still flourishes in liberal circles.
Interesting example. Another aspect of fascist-leftist racial bean-counting.