@marlowe1 I’m sorry, but that interpretation doesn’t make any sense at all. I get they’re using HR doublespeak that is specifically structured to give them the maximal amount of plausible deniability, but the leaker is explicit that this is the career office is “actively using funds for students with no financial need when we have a large number of higher need students attempting to fund their summer opportunities.” Of course the career advancement is cautious enough to dress the inequity up in politer words of “outreach” but that doesn’t make it any better. The secret is that there is no difference between funding availability and funding outreach. You can’t get funding if you don’t know about it, full stop.
Rachael Ward’s response is extremely telling. She doesn’t even attempt to refute the leaker’s claims that this is an unfair handout to connected students that bypasses the normal process of offering funding to all students and making decisions on financial need. Rather, she gives a rather silly ‘the ends justify the means’ sort of argument for why this is okay and says that she’ll contact Sara (i.e. Bosworth, the director of Relations & Development) and have Sara ask donors for more money which then will be given to students with financial need. If, as you say, the email itself was the problem, and not the intended use of the money, why didn’t Ward dispute these strong claims on the part of the leaker? Why would her response be to justify subverting the process to earmark money for connected students and then say, essentially, that even though this isn’t going to students that need it, we’ll just ask for more money and if we get it, we’ll give it to students with financial need? That response is, frankly, bizarre if this funding is available for everyone.