A cousin who lived with the Morrisons for a while did not see any signs of abuse and believed it was possible Fierceton could have inflicted the injuries herself. [9] In a news release, Penn's then-president Amy Gutmann, a daughter of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany who had herself been the first in her family to attend college,[11] spoke admiringly of Fierceton as "a first-generation low-income student and a former foster youth. And its striking to see just the continuing to push of what happened. And I ended up reading the comments, and the comments were just horrendous. 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. 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. I took photos of the building and sent it to them, and I was connecting them with different people who were in my class, who were in his class. So therefore that doesnt fit their understanding of low-income, despite the fact that your mother was no longer your legal guardian, youre a ward of the state. [2], At the beginning of April,[5] after she came to school with a black eye that showed through the concealer she put over it, she was taken to see the wellness director, who asked what had happened. We started building this, and this is exactly who we built it for. Because thats not how we understand poverty. And I think its true. My life is over, Im in the hospital, Im at rock bottom. Fierceton had also brought her mentor, a staff member at the university's Civic House, into the meeting; at the outset Winkelstein told the woman she could not speak or she would be disconnected immediately. Were close to done. Medical records, records from child welfare services, corroborating letters from detectives and lawyers and elementary, middle, and high school teachers, childhood friends, professors basically everyone who had known me. That was Mackenzie Fierceton and thats our show. So normally the term FGLI, its just an umbrella term for both. Also, there was a delay in getting the Penn Police there because they didnt know where the building was. Enough blood? Because Im not under any illusion that Im the typical foster kid. 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. And so that was when it really transitioned, the second half of it, into these really intimate questions about my abuse until the point where I was sobbing and couldnt answer the questions anymore. "You can't couch-surf in a pandemic", Norton said. And again, people, including Penn administrators, have the perception of I think the stereotype and my friend Anea Moore, whos a Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Penn who founded Penn first or co-founded it had a really great quote in The New Yorker about we arent all, quote-unquote something along the lines of like impoverished, inner city kids who go to crumbling public schools as the wider media portrays us to be. 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. "She has become emboldened over time, and has been successful with her evolving tale for 6 yrs. RG: So you applied for your masters in social work and there was a question of whether to check the, what Ive learned is called the FGLI box: first-generation, low-income. And I turned over all this information to his widow. 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. [2], Fierceton refused, and a week before she withdrew from the Rhodes Scholarship, Penn's Office of Student Conduct (OSC) notified Fierceton it, too, would be investigating. Her mother had no explanation for the injuries, other than saying perhaps she had done it to herself. 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. Given the pandemic, Rhodes Scholar judges interviewed candidates over Zoom. And now they have to face the fact that someone who looks like them, who shares all these identities with them, could be the source of all of this harm. Penn's report notes that Fierceton disputes this account. They would not do so, however, if she agreed to withdraw from the scholarship, surrender the Latin honors that had accompanied her degree, and take a mandatory leave for "counseling and support" before receiving her master's. MF: verbally. Mackenzies critics even began nitpicking how much blood was in her hair while she was in the intensive care unit. She found Fierceton's diary at the house and read it, then interviewed teachers and administrators at Whitfield, learning of Morrison's insulting texts to Fierceton. "We have concluded that there is a basis for serious concern and that further investigation by the Rhodes Committee may be appropriate", she wrote. [2], Fierceton supplied the trust's investigators with her medical and court records from the mid-2010s as well as letters from 26 peopleteachers at Whitfield, the three Penn faculty members who had written her Rhodes recommendation letters, vouching for her abuse claims and saying she had never misrepresented herself. But those definitions arent anywhere to be found. Its just so obvious that you fit the criteria for low-income, but it seems like they feel like you dont fit it in the spirit of how they want it. [22], In the New Yorker article, Fierceton and others criticized Penn for its use of not only her story but another recent FGLI Rhodes awardee as poverty porn, suggesting the university had turned on her when it learned she had actually come from a privileged, affluent background and thus did not fit the narrative of having grown up in foster care recounted in its news release and the accompanying Inquirer article. [2][3], Fierceton had initially expected it would be easier for her to transition to college life than it was for other students, since she was not leaving a family behind at home. Margulis later told The New Yorker that he had been telling the prosecutor repeatedly that Fierceton "had no credibility and made all of this up", the same theme as Morrison's many arguments in person and over the phone to other Whitfield parents. I really appreciate it. A picture of her was posted at the nurse's station should she make the attempt. In April, the trust's investigative committee produced a 15-page report praising Fierceton as "gifted, driven, and charismatic" but concluding ultimately that she "created and repeatedly shared false narratives about herself", noting in particular her references to injuries she was treated for in her September 2014 hospital stay that are not reflected in her medical records. And please go and leave us a rating or a review it helps people find the show. "[12] Gutmann, soon to step down from her position to serve as U.S. ambassador to Germany, had made increasing the amount of FGLI students at Penn a priority in her previous 17 years as the university's president. And that is part of what felt like it gave me such a home, is because we had these sort of underlying shared experiences, but all came from different backgrounds to an extent, and all still supported and accepted one another. That night at home, Morrison, who had apparently learned of the report, confronted her daughter about it. This is derived from language in the federal Higher Education Act, which ties first-generation status to the educational attainment of the parent the student "regularly resides with and receives support from". [2], In the early 2000s the couple went through a protracted divorce during which a guardian ad litem was appointed to represent their daughter's interests at the custody hearing. MF: And its mentioned briefly. The situation was further complicated by a lack of cell phone service in the basement, requiring students to team up and verbally relay information from the 9-1-1 operator to a professor performing CPR on Driver and back to a student posted just outside the door. And theyll openly talk about this. And so where is your story now? 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. A graduate student named Mackenzie Fierceton was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship by the University of Pennsylvania in 2020 only to have it stripped from her a few months later after allegations. Detective Carrie Brandt, who had been planning to follow up on the hotline report at Whitfield that day, instead interviewed Fierceton at the hospital. She got straight A's, served in student government, managed the field hockey team, played varsity soccer, and volunteered to assist with the local Special Olympics. Its, in my opinion, because they get overlooked and the kids like me are kind of rendered invisible by the privileges of our biological families. Fierceton's mother's supporters have maintained that her daughter was an emotionally manipulative girl who injured herself and fabricated other aspects of the abuse in order to become a more appealing candidate for admission to an Ivy League college such as the University of Pennsylvania. RG: Like, those two things dont fit together. And so, like I mentioned earlier, I dont want to go over too much of the history that led up to your battle with Penn and with the Rhodes trust, because people can find that in The New Yorker article that came out recently, you went over that in some pretty decent length; in Katie Courics podcast in a recent interview there. RG: Right. And then the other question was: Are you the first in your family to attend college? 24-year-old Mackenzie Fierceton won the Rhodes scholarship in November 2020, but a tip-off to the prestigious committee kicked off a deeper investigation into the student's background. Im part of a wrongful death lawsuit that was filed in August, 2020. Youre welcome to talk to Penn Police or their Division of Special Services or the Womens Center, or any program that Ive been involved in, or people that have been involved in supporting me who can corroborate this. And I think psychologically one way people feel safer about it is to say: No, that happens to other people. Yes, to my lawyer who communicated it to me. And so I was like, of course, Im going to respond again. Who would hold party elites accountable to the values they proclaim to have? RG: And did they say anything along those lines? "[2], In December, an anonymous 22-page letter was sent to the U.S. office of the Rhodes Trust, which administers the scholarship program. Then, the first-generation box. was truthful, Rafaelle feared that Penn might share its information with the government and if the U.S. Attorney decided to pursue a prosecution, it would be likely to last a long time and consume much of her attention. But its interesting because most of the questions are about these applications and then the second half is when it turns to these questions of the abuse. She was an independent student when she applied. Like one of them was describing a biological child in a house as another foster child, and something about a half-brother or something.What were those and how were those errors kind of deployed against you? Theres people who span all different kinds of experiences. Raised in Chesterfield, Missouri, a West County suburb of St. Louis, she attended and graduated from the Whitfield School in Creve Coeur. MF: Its hard to say. "She was falling apart under the academic stresses at school and was exhausted, and I believe looking for an out." [3] The change in her living situation greatly complicated her college plans as she had no financial resources of her own. A University of Pennsylvania May graduate who is currently completing her master's degree at Penn has been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship for graduate study at the University of Oxford.. Penn's 2021 Rhodes Scholar is Mackenzie Fierceton from St. Louis, currently residing in Philadelphia. Its a very under-researched field. So first-generation and/or low-income, again, is the acronym. And how much did she challenge your medical condition after that beating? Fierceton clarified the details in question and Ruderman said she understood better. "She lies better than I can tell the truth. Mackenzie Morrison was born Mackenzie Terrell but took her mother's name after her father, Billy Terrell, who worked in soap operas, left. And its no offense its not like the most profound . "[I]t was probably from someone in my biological family," she told The Intercept, "because it had photos of me; it had very specific information that very few people would haveand I don't think many people would have random childhood photos of me. "[4][2], Winkelstein followed up with a letter to Elizabeth Kiss, the trust's CEO, alerting her that the university had been investigating Fierceton's story, found it to have seriously diverged from the reality of her life, with the abuse allegations quite possibly fabricated. RG: 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. You didnt grow up in crumbling projects your entire life. And thats actually one of the things that, if there was any doubt whatsoever about this story, in some ways it was settled by that. And do you know Linda Tirado? Its a very different lifestyle. I was in this private school with a lot of upper-middle class or wealthy white students. And those other people are kind of like the orphans that we think of in Dickensian novels. RG: So I could imagine why at some point youd be like, you know what, Im just not going to keep taking Ls here. [2], "Family is not the people you are related to by blood," she wrote in the diary. She considered the advantages and disadvantages of reporting her mother, but ultimately feared she might not even be believed, as her mother would tell people she was mentally ill or lying. Raised in Chesterfield, Missouri, a West County suburb of St. Louis, she attended and graduated from the Whitfield School in Creve Coeur. She retained two lawyers to represent her pro bono; they talked to Morrison themselves, who told them she still loved her daughter and wanted her to come home. RG: Nothing I have is persuasive to these people. [3], Through her attorney, Morrison gave a statement, her only one so far, on the case: "Mackenzie is deeply loved by her mom and family. Yeah. But I agreed to come into this Zoom meeting and this was the last day of November 2020. If youre an independent student, then you should check yes to both boxes. [2], In December 2021 Fierceton retained another lawyer pro bono and filed her own suit against Penn, alleging that the university's investigations into her history and how she had represented herself was a "sham", undertaken with the intent of forcing her to withdraw from the Rhodes Scholarship and damaging her credibility as a witness in the Driver suit, constituting tortious interference with a business relationship and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. Later, another Whitfield parent Morrison had talked to told this woman that she believed Fierceton had done this to get admitted to an Ivy League college, an idea which she found preposterous. And we do know for sure that she was in touch with the university. So now Im looking at one American city and one English city and comparing the experiences of youth who crossed over from the child welfare system to the criminal justice system in both of those cities and kind of how the geopolitical environment and local policies and practices might impact the rate of youth crossing over and their experiences.Then its going to be a qualitative study in just really trying to understand their experiences from their voices, which is something that I often find missing from research. She also alleged that Penn had on many occasions failed to follow its own disciplinary policies in its investigation of her.[16]. Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. [2], Brandt noted that Morrison never asked about, or expressed concern for, her daughter's well-being. But I think a lot of it stems from the current policies and practices of federal and local funding and what kind of programs theyre funding for kids. 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