By News Editors Sophia Cossitt-Levy, Olivia Marceda and Erica Schindler
This week, Fairfield University undergraduate students opened their school Gmail inboxes to find an email from an unusual source: the Fairfield Republican Town Committee.
The unauthorized email was sent on Monday, Oct. 28 with the subject line “Fairfield University, Your Vote Matters.” It opens with information about early voting in the town of Fairfield, but then urges students to vote for the town’s team of Republican candidates.
The email was signed by Laura Devlin, who is the Chairwoman of the Republican Town Committee. Below, the message reads that it was “Paid for by the Fairfield Republican Town Committee” and has prompted the question of how and why the committee had access to a list of student email addresses.
A phone call with Devlin revealed that the mass email was “completely independent of the university.” Additionally the committee “didn’t request the list,” as they understood that Fairfield University would not be able to share student email addresses with them.
What the committee realized, however, was that student email addresses had a standard extension, and using student names, they could figure out their email addresses. They understood that they might not be able to reach every student this way, but they might be able to reach at least some of the students. Devlin said she did not know an estimate of the number of students who were contacted but hopes that they “were successful in sharing the information.”
The reason the Fairfield Republican Town Committee wanted to reach students specifically was because the Fairfield University Media Center has been used as an early voting location for the 2024 election. Though many Republicans voted against a second early voting location, they have been pleased with voter turnout so far.
Additionally, Devlin said that there “wasn’t a clear understanding that students were eligible to vote in Connecticut.” So they wanted to “create awareness” and “inform [students] of that ability and who Republican candidates are.”
Devlin also addressed the change with the opt-out box. She said that they refer to Fairfield University as ‘FFU,’ which is why the initial unsubscribe message read that. This created an “unintended” association with Fairfield University’s Marketing Team. Once the committee was made aware of this association and received a request to change their opt-out message, they did.
The committee also reached out only to Fairfield University students because the early voting location is on its campus. “[We] thought about doing Sacred Heart [University]. We only did Fairfield University because the students are there,” Devlin shared.
She added that this was also part of the reason she and other Republicans didn’t support the Media Center becoming an early voting location, in addition to the one at Town Hall. “[It’s] not a super convenient place,” she said. Still, if Sacred Heart University had an early voting location on its campus, the committee would have done outreach there.
The Mirror also reached out to the Fairfield Democratic Town Committee. The chairman of this committee, Steve Sheinberg, said, “I’ve received numerous calls from Fairfield University students who feel outraged by the Fairfield Republican Town Committee’s use of private student emails to campaign for Republican candidates. This misuse of personal contact information is an infringement on student privacy.”
Sheinberg added that this way of campaigning “creates an unnecessary divide between students and Town residents” before sharing that “the DTC calls on the RTC to issue a public apology to Fairfield University and its students.”
On Monday evening, The Mirror reached out to Jennifer Anderson ‘97, MBA ‘02, Associate Vice President for Marketing and Communications at Fairfield, to clarify the origin of the widely-sent email. She emphasized that the email was not sent by the university.
“It was brought to our attention earlier today that an email was sent by an outside political organization to university students,” Anderson said. “The university did not authorize or distribute this email, and the university did not provide student email addresses to any organization. That is strictly against our policy.”
Some students we spoke to, like Claire DeMarco ‘25, felt that the email was inappropriate. “When I saw that email I was shocked at first – I would have no reason to be on that mailing list, nor would I want to.”
The sender’s address was info@fairfield-rtc.com. If students hit the “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of the email message, the following message appeared: “You’ve successfully been unsubscribed from FFU’s Marketing Channel messages.”
The abbreviation appears to indicate association with Fairfield University, however, the unsubscribe message was changed some time between 7:30 p.m and 9:30 p.m on Monday. It now reads “You’ve successfully been unsubscribed from Fairfield Republican Town Committee’s Marketing Channel messages.”
Additionally, the email seemed to have been sent via Amazon Simple Email Service, which, according to their website, allows users to “deliver high-volume email campaigns and manage incoming emails at scale.”
As for the unsubscribe message, Anderson said that the one attached to the email is not the official university opt-out message. “After receiving a copy of the email late today, we can confirm it was sent by an outside organization,” Anderson said. “The opt-out is not our university opt-out and is misleading.” In addition, Anderson attached the image of the official opt-out message, which is very different from the initial message and allows people to choose what types of emails they would like to unsubscribe from.
Further communication between Anderson and Jennifer Leeper, Connecticut State Representative, provided by Sheinberg,revealed that only a list of student names (not email addresses) had been provided by the university to the Town Registrars for “address verification purposes.” It is unclear whether or not this was the list of names used by the Republican Town Committee to reach students.
For some students, the email was not relevant to them, in terms of either political affiliation or voting location.
Sophomore Daniella Norena-Mesa said, “I think it’s interesting, especially when they’re specifically endorsing the Republican party, instead of just encouraging students to vote.”
Other students were unbothered. Sophomore Michael Considine said, “It doesn’t matter to me because I don’t read my email. Also, I already voted.”
Another sophomore, Isabella Bonati, agreed, sharing that she had voted by absentee ballot. “I don’t really read the political emails. I just do the research on candidates myself,” she said.
For any student looking to vote early, the Media Center and Town Hall are open from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. until Nov. 3, with extended hours on Oct. 31.
This article has been updated to include new information.
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