Yes, it’s a hypothetical with a long OP. It’s a mystery to me why you’re still reading this if these vex you. There probably won’t be an attached poll, though I reserve the right to change my mind between now and the time I hit submit.
Today’s protagonist is Thelma, a fortysomething educator who recently took a job as the principal of her alma mater, Florida Evans High School. She’s done well in her career but is hardly the star of her graduating class; that would be her best friend, Bernadette, who invented some widget during her sophomore year in college, sold it to IBM, and used the revenue to start her own company. Bernadette is currently worth 2.6 gazillion dollars, retired, and idle. FEHS is in an extremely poor Memphis neighborhood. A generation ago, the students were almost uniformly black (as are both women); in the quarter-century since then, the demographics have changed, and now the student body is about 25% Hispanic.
A while ago Bernadette came to Thelma with a suggestion. Being she’s rich, nostalgic, and idle, she wanted to start a scholarship fund for FEHS grads and choose the recipients herself. She’ll let Thelma and her faculty establish the objective academic criteria for the scholarships, but she wants all the applicants to submit an essay she alone will jduge. Each year, she’ll give the top six a full ride at the college of their choice. Of course Thelma agrees to help set this up.
In the first year of the program, forty students out of a class of 400 apply for Bernadette’s program. Thelma delivers the printed essays personally. Thanking her, Bernadette suggests they go out to dinner. Thelma takes a moment to spend a penny; when she returns, she sees that Bernadette has discarded half a dozen essays, among them the entry from the school’s valedictorian, whom she knows to be the student who’s had to overcome the most hardship to succeed. Moreover, the discarded essays are all from students with obviously Hispanic names.
“What are you doing?” Thelma asks.
“You probably shouldn’t ask me that,” Bernadette replies.
“Since when do we keep secrets from each other?” Thelma says.
“Everybody keeps secrets,” Bernadette says. “You just don’t like to admit it. But okay. I don’t intend to pay for any wetbacks to go to college. I don’t want to get you in trouble or anything, so I’m not going to ask you to check anybody’s immigration status. I’ll just handle it my way. Anyway, get your coat. I’m hungry.”
What, if anything, should Thelma do with what she’s just learned?