reverse discrimination

I work with a scholarship committee. Recently there was some confusion regarding the barely-gendered language in one of the eligibility documents: the language seemed to indicate that men were eligible for a scholarship, but the scholarship was clearly intended by and for women. Someone else responded with an explanation for how it was phrased:

It was always the intention that the award(s) go to a female applicant(s). But back when we first starting administering the scholarship, the powers-to-be were afraid that making it a "females only" award might lead to some sort of legal proceeding against us, as a body or as individuals. So it was decided to make both females and males "eligible" with female applicants receiving preference. Some time later on, people wanted us to tip the scales in favor of female applicants studying [XXX]. So the maximum preference was always given to females studying [XXX]. We have never seriously considered male applicants studying [XXX].

Because having "females only" awards is so uncommon, and so very likely to induce a suit! If that's what really went down, it absolutely reeks of faith in the reality of reverse discrimination....

I see two possible explanations for the original committee's desire to publicly cast the award as open to everyone:

1. The committee was unable to distinguish between "appropriate" and "inappropriate" groups to institutionally advantage/give a chance to. (I find this unlikely since the categorization is so much a part of the fabric of our culture today; everyone can rattle off the common "protected" categories, regardless of their rhetorical purpose in doing so.)
2. The committee wanted to register a protest against (or at least was unwilling to kowtow to) affirmative action programs -- specifically against the idea that women must be explicitly advantaged in certain cases because men are unexplicitly advantaged in all cases. (This seems much more likely to me, but I'm not sure how to further unpack it except to say: ick.)
   

Their fear of being explicit with a "females only" requirement implies something else as well: The original committee believed there would be male applicants who were so entrenched in the idea that intending to fund only women is "reverse discrimination" that those applicants would actually bring a suit. That potential outcome never even crossed my mind (presumably because of the naturalness in my mind of supporting institutionally-disadvantaged groups in equally institutional ways). I think this given explanation is the most likely motivator for the current phrasing, but the reverse discrimination aspect is an interesting, more fundamental motivator.

I keep churning over this last aspect in particular in my mind.... Huh. Fascinating insights into the manifestations of socially conservative thinking.