Therapy for all

Here's an interesting headline from yesterday's paper:

Payments Not Hush Money, UW Aide Says

In case you're just tuning in: the University of Wisconsin-Madison is again in hot water with the legislature. This time it's because a vice chancellor of student affairs, Paul Barrows, went job-hunting while on paid leave following a romantic affair with a graduate student -- an affair chancellor John Wiley has called inappropriate, but not in violation of university policy (?).

The newest wrinkle is that Casey Nagy, an executive assistant to Wiley, paid for the distraught student's therapy with money from a "crisis fund" in the Dean of Students office, then reimbursed the fund by dipping into "discretionary gift funds in the chancellor's office."

I have every sympathy for the grad student, of course. Barrows put her in a very difficult position. But what I want to know is, where is my free, government-funded therapy? I have a few things I'd like to get off my chest.

One other question: when a lackey claims that payouts from the discretionary gift fund aren't hush money, doesn't that automatically mean they are?