Acting Deputy Secretary Eugene Hickok today issued the following statement on the University of California-Berkeley's failure to mail its application on time for the 2004 Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship Program:

"It is a shame that the administration at Berkeley was negligent in regards to submitting its Fulbright applications to the Department of Education. Some 60 other applicants managed to get their applications in by the deadline—a deadline that was known about well in advance. The university had even asked for and was given a waiver to send in the applications by mail as opposed to electronically.

"The public relations and lobbying campaign that the university has engaged in has brought attention to the students' plight but does not change the fact that bending the rules for one school would simply be unfair. The Department cannot give preferential treatment to any university, regardless of the excuse. Would Berkeley accept an application for undergraduate admission that missed its deadline?

"There is a reason for deadlines. Fair and equitable treatment is essential in a competitive grant competition to avoid the appearance of favoritism. The Department met several times with university officials, and after a thorough review of the policies, procedures and regulations regarding grant submissions, decided that the facts of UC Berkeley's case do not merit special treatment.

"It is unfortunate that the university is unwilling to accept the fact that they alone deserve the blame for this misfortunate incident. A simple trip to the post office would have ensured that the university met the deadline. Once it became evident that Federal Express did not pick up their package, it was incumbent upon the university to either go to a FedEx with the package, or go to the post office themselves. When a package is time-sensitive, most people go to great lengths to ensure that it is taken care of. Instead, the university chose the "FedEx ate my homework" excuse, which is not acceptable.

"This situation is unfortunate and we hope that UC Berkeley's graduate students will be able to obtain support for their research projects through other sources or reapply in the next competition."

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