This year's debate topic, felony disenfranchisement, has opened my eyes to the way our society maintains an air of equality while finding other, frankly impressively convoluted ways to keep minorities in this nation from being treated socially as equal. Rather than talk about how felony disenfranchisement accomplishes this (I'll save that for another article later), I thought I would discuss how this is perpetuated through other areas of our society.

Today's case study: college internships.

I spent last summer and am, once again, spending this summer in an unpaid internship. My first summer, after my freshman year, the internship was one of the only positions I could find due to my limited experiences. This summer, however, I had applied to many different listings and was unable to get a paid position.

As I didn't get the internships, I thought about all the other people that also didn't. Thankfully, I was lucky enough to have individuals for whom I had worked the previous year invite me back for a second summer. But is this luck?

For me, yes. I am fortunate enough to come from a family that is financially stable. For that reason, I can trade my time for a line on my resume rather than money.

But there are many students my age who can't say the same. Whether they entered college financially and have been strapped with loans or have struggled with money for years, many families depend on every member being a source of income. As unfortunate as reality is, a disproportionate amount of these families are minorities.

While there are paid positions in the career fields of most students, those positions are flooded with applications and are only given to the best of the best. And, as unfortunate as reality is, a disproportionate amount of these families are white.

Unless you have a personal contact, no internship position is guaranteed. I bet you can venture a guess what the demographics of the contacts for the successful people in this nation look like.

Spoiler: white.

But, frankly, the best of the best aren't the ones that need these positions. Internships are gateways to careers and help students gain the knowledge and experience they need to be fruitful in the workforce. The company, of course, wants the best intern possible. But from a student's perspective, it's the ones that have come from hard backgrounds and struggled through school that would benefit the most from such an experience.

Unfortunately, these students are forced to spend their summer working for money rather than experience in their field. This wouldn't be the end of the world if jobs or graduate schools weren't looking for years of experience right out of college.

Paid and unpaid internships are a way for society to seem fair but, in reality, continue to provide opportunities to some and not others. Small things such as no monetary compensation or accepting the "best" applicant rather than the most deserving may seem like fair or reasonable barriers but, in fact, bar many minorities from career opportunities and higher education.

The fact of the matter is, while I am extremely thankful for my summer position, I am also very humbled to be able to accept it. Unpaid internships favor students that don't need the monetary compensation but, truthfully, those are often the students that need the experience that internships have to offer.