Like some students do have a story, more like me where they had some kind of separation from their family; other students their parents were doctors or lawyers or Ph.D. students in other countries, but then they came here and their degrees no longer, essentially, counted or people who are just first-generation and not necessarily low-income or people who are low-income, but not first-generation. MF: No, I found it before. And that dynamic, I would say, [laughs] probably played a big part in all of this. Period." Or is this something thats been overlooked? Logan filed her wrongful death suit in August 2020, alleging Penn was negligently responsible for her husband's death through failing to make Caster properly accessible and not making SP2 develop an emergency response protocol. To me, it seems like any reader of the English language would read that in a literary sense , RG: of its self-exploration, self-doubt, trauma. [3] In high school there, Fierceton was a model student. Morrison had told the admitting physician that she had not been present when her daughter was hurt but believed she had fallen down the stairs in the house, which the hospital accepted as the likely cause, even though her fearfulness was also noted. The nurse also reported bruises all over Fierceton's body, in different stages of healing, considered an indicator of possible physical abuse. Smith said he believed the university had decided before it began investigating that Fierceton's abuse allegations were false and that she had fabricated them with the goal of finding an easier way into Penn or another elite school. RG: Like, those two things dont fit together. "I really don't have words,'" she told a mentor at the Penn Women's Center. I asked specifically about those boxes and the answer I got was again, this was multiple years ago, but it was something along the lines of I dont think that biological parents are relevant to this. There was also the part of me that was terrified. "Was the problem that a child who was placed into foster care and had no contact with her biological mother wasn't actually a first-generation college student? That evening that the article came out is when I got a call from the reporter saying: I got this anonymous email that said X, Y, Z, and I wanted to let you know. He explained that Morrison had had no prior criminal record, Fierceton's complaints about her mother's boyfriend and prescription drug abuse had been unsubstantiated, her cousin had witnessed no abuse while living with the Morrisons at a time prior to the incident, and he had learned that Fierceton "had regular temper tantrums, beyond the normal range for an adolescent". "[2], In December, an anonymous 22-page letter was sent to the U.S. office of the Rhodes Trust, which administers the scholarship program. And what area of it are you going to explore with your Ph.D.? She was an independent student when she applied. She had lived with her mother since her parents divorced acrimoniously during her childhood, and a guardian ad litem was appointed to represent Fierceton's interests in the proceeding, during which abuse allegations were made. Mackenzie Fierceton is the child of a doctor who attended a private prep school in a wealthy suburb. [2], Some of those Morrison talked with did believe her; a classmate of Fierceton's recalled people likening her to the protagonist of the film Gone Girl, about a Missouri woman who disappears in order to avenge herself on an adulterous husband, whom she makes it appear killed her. Mackenzie Fierceton of St. Louis was an Oxford student who had to offer her a Rhodes scholarship after the university caught her lying about her financial condition and her unpleasant teenage years on her application reports. [Laughs.] This could happen to me. And Im kind of one of the lucky ones where I had really expansive and thorough documentation for all the parts of this story. The New Yorker reported that Fierceton reported this to Penn's campus police, fearing that her mother had somehow found out where she was living. You know, I honestly dont know. One trigger for the beatings was sexual abuse by one of her mother's boyfriends, Henry Lovelace, Jr., a fitness trainer and multiple winner of the Missouri's Strongest Man competition in his weight class, which her mother warned her never to talk about. She was then admitted to Penn on a full scholarship, where she identified as a first-generation low-income (FGLI) student despite her background due to her estrangement from her parents and lack of financial support from them, a classification she says Penn officials told her was acceptable in those circumstances. We need to stay on task. The father's message was forwarded to Penn's general counsel, Wendy White, who got in touch with Morrison. And at the time I was like: Why what? The award brings the number of Penn Rhodes Scholars to 31 since the scholarship's inception in 1902. And like: Why are you considered an independent student? At school, she began confiding about her situation with a history teacher, telling them about her mother's physical abuse. She had not, she insisted, written her original essay with the intent of increasing her chances of admission. box, it's like you have to fit yourself in, saying: Are you the first in your family to attend? And its funny, cause it just made me so frustrated and I actually went back and read it. As youve had time to sort through this, what do you think was driving Penn to go through this process, which they had to know, at some level, would cost them? [4] Within days, the father of one of Fierceton's Whitfield friends, and a high-school classmate using an anonymous email, contacted Penn to inform them she had apparently misrepresented herself and had actually spent most of her childhood in her mother's home in an affluent West County suburb of St. Louis. Cops have accused the MTV star of stalking as well as violation of an order of protection. To me, it seems like any reader of the English language would read that in a literary sense , of its self-exploration, self-doubt, trauma. I have some of my own theories, but I want to hear yours. And Penn is still claiming that those are fake journals. So, to cut into the interview here real quick, I wanted to add that Mackenzie is referring to a letter sent to the Rhodes Trust in December 2020. RG: And all of us, no matter what our situation, are not completely safe from it. Penn filed a 130-page response two weeks later, denying all her allegations of wrongdoing and saying that the university officials and co-defendants who had investigated the case were unaware of the Driver lawsuit when they did. Fierceton earned her bachelor's degree in political science from the College of Arts & Sciences and is . "[1]:119, Dismissal of mother's charges and expurgation of records, Role in wrongful death suit against university, In its response to Fierceton's suit, Penn quotes Fierceton as telling police as soon as they entered her hospital room after her later injury about her diary and that it would tell them everything they would need to know. Like, I dont have the precise statistics in front of me, but if you asked people to guess at the number of people who will experience, say, two years of poverty in their life, people will miss it by magnitudes. And theres also literature thats economic literature versus sociology, different fields have different perspectives on what that relationship between foster care and the criminal justice system is and what the causes are. And that is, I felt very defeated too. "It is seven years later, and I am still having to prove and prove and prove what has happened to me." MF: Its hard to say. You know, I believe the first people who said that was the Rhodes Trust. And in the U.S., there is much more pressure to pull kids out of homes, right? @RachelAviv for @NewYorker One home, during her junior year of high school, was so "toxic" and crammed with other foster kids that she left for weeks at a time, sleeping each night on a carousel of couches at the homes of various friends, she said. There was, yes, disagreement, because I said there was blood in my hair in the essay, they said there wasnt enough blood or there wasnt blood or something. And its mentioned briefly. Not as something that is for the benefit of the MacKenzies, the people who were being brought into the school, but actually for the benefit of the university itself, its image and also for the students. But teachers noticed that Fierceton often seemed physically uncomfortable in her mother's presence, and a close friend noted that she was often injured. But part of it is funding decisions. I said were almost done. She was diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome and released after three weeks. Theyre not on a website. Thats all it takes to support the journalism you rely on. So Im not sure how much could have been missing. How did you get to school? A week later, Brandt interviewed Morrison again at the police station; this time she said that her daughter had injured herself, saying "I guess she has more problems than I thought." "Fuck thatI don't have [a family]" she said later. She definitely asked some questions about it. So, yes, an article came out in the local paper saying that she had been arrested. I mean, youd been taking loss after loss, despite having the facts on your side. [2], Shortly after the Rhodes investigation began, Rafaelle was informed that Penn was proposing to revoke Fierceton's bachelors on the grounds of her apparent self-misrepresentation. Fierceton considered dropping out, but "if I truly can't do this, where am I supposed to return to? Whereas a social worker comes into a poor home and looks around and sees just the normal poverty that our system has foisted on people and says: Oh, well, clearly this is somebody that needs to be stripped out of here. In 2020, former foster child Mackenzie Fierceton received a Rhodes Scholarship as a self-identified first generation, low income student at the University of Pennsylvania. I identify with the FGLI umbrella term and definitely being a low-income student, but Ive never really called myself a standalone first-generation. Nor is she obligated to meet their expectations of her. We dont have ads, so we depend on our members 35,000 and counting to help us hold the powerful to account. And, in this case, almost everyone who was involved in the university administration are upper middle class or very wealthy, highly academically educated white women. Her mothers name was entered into a registry of abusers. What happened after you went out of the hospital? She, about 10 years ago, she wrote a comment I think on a Gawker post or something like that that we ended up then re-publishing as an essay at The Huffington Post about, and it was about her life in poverty, and it went viral, millions of people read it, extremely well-written piece. Others echoed the criticism. And that was the end of it, right? RG: Anything in particular jump out at you after having read back over that transcript? [2], In March 2014, Fierceton began keeping a secret diary[a] documenting her life and her ruminations on her situation, writing it in her bedroom closet by the light of her phone and hiding it behind a ventilation panel. The prosecutor eventually dropped the charges and the arrest record was expunged. Like there is more attention to systemic poverty and trying to keep children in their homes to begin with, I would say, which is important, because if you can keep kids in their homes, then theyre not in the system and facing that foster-to-prison pipeline. And so can you talk a little bit about your research? The university writes: After those who knew Fierceton raised questions about her story, it was investigated not just once, but several times, and not just by Penn faculty and staff, but also the Rhodes Trust. MF: You know, I believe the first people who said that was the Rhodes Trust. In between those placements, she slept at friends' houses for long periods. When they did, they were unable to get stretchers or backboards down Caster's stairways or elevators as there was insufficient space. But in this application they had two questions which are to determine financial aid. Did she lie? While her yes answer to "At any time since you turned age 13, were both your parents deceased, were you in foster care or were you a dependent or ward of the court?" And please go and leave us a rating or a review it helps people find the show. There, she wandered the hallways until she found the history teacher, and collapsed. In the presence of her mother that night at their house, Mackenzie repeated the same story to a visiting caseworker, who appeared to accept it. "[2], On her application, Fierceton recounted her background and the unexpected way it led to her becoming a foster child. And at the time I was like: Why what? "We would never have believed any of it if we weren't living it." Cause Ive just wanted to go on with my life and, you know, live it. "I advised him that this was ridiculous, and this had to be a 'status thing", she said. Is that just an interpretation or did they say anything that suggested to you that the fact that you had gone to a private school and grown up in an upper-middle-class situation meant that you could never at any point consider yourself low-income? In The New Yorker article, one teacher had written: She showed up at my classroom door with a bloodied and battered face and then fainted., RG: And then, Rachel Aviv, the reporter also quotes Sherry McClain, who was a nurse who was assigned to you, she said: She had two black eyes, and her hair was full of blood. Penn officials, of course, have said the interview was appropriate. Anything in particular jump out at you after having read back over that transcript? The recurring sexual abuse by Lovelace had made Fierceton even more anxious over the summer after he gave her mother a gun as a gift (Morrison had called the police after Lovelace showed Fierceton pictures of the gun. But the outline of the story is this: Mackenzie was raised in a wealthy St. Louis suburb by a single mother who was repeatedly abusive, according to two state agencies. Yeah, so Penn First for the whole FGLI community. And if you havent already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. It called attention to claims, such as the one in her application essay, that by the time she was six she "knew every police officer in my county by their first name", a claim Fierceton herself admitted was untrue and born of her fear of her biological family when she wrote it. So that was, I think later on that specific line came into question. Fierceton was released after four days. The reporter had assumed based on her status as a FGLI student which stands for first-generation, low-income that she had been poor her entire life. Fierceton finished her Whitfield education on a scholarship while living in foster homes. And so youre becoming rather inconvenient to the university at that point , I would assume, which plays into the way that universities and elite structures think of diversity, I think. Asked about Lovelace's alleged sexual abuse, specifically an incident the year before where Fierceton, having fallen asleep in her mother's bed, woke to find him caressing her breasts, Morrison expressed amusement at the possibility that her boyfriend could have mistaken her teenage daughter for her; Lovelace, interviewed separately, denied all the allegations. Enough blood? [2], Morrison, no longer employed by St. Luke's, then began the process of trying to restore her reputation by having all references to it removed from the public record. And then The New Yorker adds in parentheses that a Penn spokesperson says: Yeah, well, thats not the definition that we use. "Without her trauma, she didnt matter", wrote a commentator in the Tulane Hullabaloo. One possible explanation for this depressing story is that Mackenzie Fierceton fraudulently accused her own mother of gravely abusing and attempting to kill her, spent 22 days in the hospital to . [14], Fierceton and her faculty supporters have suspected that Penn's investigation of her, and its determination to cast aspersions on her credibility, may be related to her role in fomenting a wrongful death suit filed against the university in August 2020, before she had been announced as a Rhodes Scholarship winner. Mackenzie Morrison was born Mackenzie Terrell but took her mother's name after her father, Billy Terrell, who worked in soap operas, left. And back in high school, it was a similar thing. At first she went to a friend's home in Ohio and then returned to the Philadelphia area as May and graduation approached to live with a classmate's family. I mean, part of it is honestly like its looking at cause we just wanted to be as thorough as possible of when [laughs] I was crying, and then I was crying and taking breaths. It didnt have any facts of the case. But I got a bit of pressure from Penn to do that. [2], The fine was later withdrawn after it was found to conflict with a provision of the university's charter prohibiting the imposition of fines in cases involving academic integrity. And because poverty and abuse are so pervasive in society and particularly in a country that has such a minimal social safety net and has so much violence. Theyre not on a website. Well, Mackenzie, thank you so much for joining me and sharing your story. Then, the first-generation box. And I was actually really nervous about doing any press for this reason. She lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital, where she spent three days in intensive care. I didnt even really think about it when I checked it, because I felt like I had a lot of information that backed it up. Then the Philly paramedics couldnt figure out how to get to the building and then they couldnt get me out. So thats the background of him. It recommended the scholarship be rescinded. While Kerr noted that Fierceton's three weeks in the hospital was far longer than might be expected given the bruises that led to her admission, she also noted the absence of injuries to Fierceton's back despite having reportedly fallen or being thrown downstairs. And please go and leave us a rating or a review it helps people find the show. Fellow students, their parents and Whitfield faculty also noticed signs which led them to suspect abuse. RG: Who will spend some significant amount of time in poverty. Did they make that threat in writing or was that . Cause then you cant think that it could be you. Penn again spoke with Morrison and, this time as well, the St. Louis County prosecutor who had decided to drop the charges, without informing Fierceton, which the university defended as standard practice not to identify witnesses interviewed. ", Morrison said. or in graduate school. And with that, like you said, notion of: Well, theres no way that you went to private school and all of this could have still happened, or that you could be low-income now and this idea that socioeconomic status is permanent. And then theres the part that felt like: I have no idea whats going to convince these people if I gave them medical records, I gave them forensic photos of me taken in the hospital, I gave them again like corroboration from professors of like how I described myself, from leaders in the FIGLY community. A 24-year-old Rhodes Scholar has left the prestigious program after being accused of lying about growing up poor, reports say. 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