The reason race is being brought up is that black people are underrepresented among scientists, and that this student clearly demonstrated the sort of curiosity

The reason race is being brought up is that black people are underrepresented among scientists, and that this student clearly demonstrated the sort of curiosity that drives great scientists. Punishing her for that would be counterproductive regardless of her skin color; it is made even worse by the fact that we generally want to encourage black people to become scientists.