Then the University of Pennsylvania accused her of lying. MF: Yeah. Yeah, it was, things like that where I simplified all of these foster kids that youre living with a biological family who have kids, which I would say are foster siblings. 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. Mackenzie Morrison was born Mackenzie Terrell but took her mother's name after her father, Billy Terrell, who worked in soap operas, left. It's a hard scholarship to win, but Fierceton. who was, I believe now, the acting provost. "We have concluded that there is a basis for serious concern and that further investigation by the Rhodes Committee may be appropriate", she wrote. MF: So thats the background of him. 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. 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. And is it somewhat of a defense mechanism that people deploy to protect themselves? As in Fierceton's case, it took an hour to remove Driver from the building. First, Morrison had tried to send Fierceton some jewelry during her freshman year and contacted the university to find out how to get in touch with her; when Fierceton was informed of this she said she had a, "Regardless of the actual reason for her name change," Penn's lawyers write in their response to her lawsuit, "Fierceton effectively fastened a buffer of separation between her real life story and the false story she had cultivated for Penn and others. That is when I would trace it back to. [2] When she turned 18, she formally left foster care[d] but continued living with the family whose home she was in. Like I just havent, really, there to be a lot of information about me publicly. Thats the reality of it, but we dont want to think of it that way. 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. Theres no cell phone reception in the basement. That was my personal statement. Both reports refrained from expressing an opinion about the truth of her abuse allegations. And where are you at school? And thats again, like not because there isnt abuse or neglect going on in families that looked like mine, or biological families that looked like mine. 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. [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. I didnt encounter many of them in the two years that I was living in foster families. So one question was: Are you from a low-income family? 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. Mackenzie Fierceton was deposed after seeking justice for a mature student, Cameron Driver, 38. And that feels like one of them where it feels like the system is willfully misunderstanding reality in order to bend it in their direction. Fierceton clarified the details in question and Ruderman said she understood better. MF: So to me it was pretty clear that it likely came from them. And I ended up reading the comments, and the comments were just horrendous. "[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. Or is that it separates two into one? "[25], "I cannot avoid the sense that Mackenzie is being faulted for not having suffered enough", Norton told The New Yorker. Fierceton. She thought that he had been very quickly removed from the building. And then to be so unanimously disbelieved and, at that point, this article was like a paragraph and a half. Then the Philly paramedics couldnt figure out how to get to the building and then they couldnt get me out. And so, yes, if the student, then, is no longer useful, I could imagine it turning. RG: Yeah. And its no offense its not like the most profound . 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. Seeing other students consult their parents for minor decisions made her feel left out; she avoided telling people she had been in foster care before college. ", "Inside Mackenzie Fierceton's ongoing legal battle with the University", "Mackenzie Fierceton Sets the Record Straight on Losing a Rhodes Scholarship Over Accusations of 'Dishonesty', "Penn community rallies in support of former Rhodes Scholar Mackenzie Fierceton", "Universities must stop fetishizing trauma", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mackenzie_Fierceton&oldid=1138496124, controversy over representation of childhood and abuse, This page was last edited on 10 February 2023, at 00:35. MF: Absolutely. And I think said something along the lines of there were things missing and it was distorted. And please go and leave us a rating or a review it helps people find the show. Mackenzie Fierceton is the child of a doctor who attended a private prep school in a wealthy suburb. And in the U.S., there is much more pressure to pull kids out of homes, right? Im part of a wrongful death lawsuit that was filed in August, 2020. She also called herself a first-generation low-income student. 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. RG: And The New Yorker article also alluded to a few things that you had gotten loose with in a couple of paragraphs. 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. After the trial ended with Morrison prevailing and the agency ordered to remove her name from the child-abuse registry, Fierceton resolved to change her last name. RG: Mhmm. ", Morrison said. 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. And I suspected that it was about this anonymous email. The Intercept is an independent nonprofit news outlet. RG: Mhmm. Although she had not attended an orientation session for first-generation/low-income (FGLI) students she had been invited to, on campus she began attending meetings and gatherings of Penn First, an FGLI student group founded the preceding year to pressure Penn to better accommodate their needs, such as not closing dormitories and cafeterias over breaks since many FGLI students could not, for various reasons, return home during those periods. You have a good education and youre clearly smart. [2], Morrison's arrest had been reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,[6] where commenters on the online version of the story took her side, speculating that Fierceton was "an entitled brat" who had vengefully fabricated charges that had the potential to end her mother's medical career. 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 has a bachelor's degree in political science from Penn and was working on a master's in social work. It seemed like there was a lack of internal emergency protocols within our grad school, the School of Social Policy & Practice. We dont have ads, so we depend on our members 35,000 and counting to help us hold the powerful to account. And how much confidence do you have that that anonymous complainer was Carrie, your biological mother. In November 2020, Mackenzie Fierceton was one of just 32 students to be awarded the Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford. [2], Brandt noted that Morrison never asked about, or expressed concern for, her daughter's well-being. And its no offense its not like the most profound . If youre an independent student, then you should check yes to both boxes. Ryan Grim: This weeks guest on Deconstructed is Mackenzie Fierceton, who was the subject of a recent story in The New Yorker. According to an investigation by the Chronicle of Higher Education, University of Pennsylvania student Mackenzie Fierceton lost her Rhodes scholarship and her master's degree was withheld after. RG: Like questioning: How much blood? So one question was: Are you from a low-income family? 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. 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. How much research has been done on the foster-care-to-prison-pipeline? And I think psychologically one way people feel safer about it is to say: No, that happens to other people. MF: Yeah. You have a good education and youre clearly smart. Like what does Penn say when you tell them: Hey, the Penn official who helped me fill this out said that these are the categories that I fit. It was: Shes a spoiled little brat. RG: as a kid. verbally. Two weeks into the school year, she realized she had been wrong. "It is seven years later, and I am still having to prove and prove and prove what has happened to me." A petition to the county circuit court to have the arrest expunged was granted in a one-page order that attributed the arrest to "false information". MF: So [laughs] I feel like I could go on for hours about that. RG: And what was the first-generation community like on campus? It was: Shes a spoiled little brat. RG: Right. RG: And I just want to read this for people. [Laughs.] The fact that they even challenged that really does expose a lot of whats going on here because I assume in their mind, theyre saying: Well, she went to this private school; she had a nice house; her mom probably drove a nice car maybe you even drove a decent car! If we review your medical records, are we going to see you had broken ribs and facial injuries? So how is a person who is filling out this application supposed to know what definition youre supposed to use? MF: Its hard to say. You know, I believe the first people who said that was the Rhodes Trust. 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. So I could imagine why at some point youd be like, you know what, Im just not going to keep taking Ls here. And they released this quote-unquote report in April of 2021 with their findings. Ultimately, she lost her Rhodes Scholarship, and Penn withheld her masters degree, demanding a letter of apology. Because thats not how we understand poverty. And that was the end of it, right? [1]:64, In February 2015, before presenting the evidence against Morrison to a grand jury for an indictment, the St. Louis County district attorney's office dropped all the charges against Morrison over Brandt's objections. Fierceton described herself as a first-generation college applicant who came from a low-income, foster-care background. Penn acknowledged that, for that reason, it could not state definitely that those events did not take place but still, "the way [she] presents this information invites the reader to speculate when she herself states she does not have a clear recollection of the nature of this event, if it occurred. The program's application asked "Are you the first generation in your family to attend college? Like you said, I was called into a meeting. She and a separate witness said records of child-welfare agencies from years earlier are not easy to obtain. And I havent been on any of the Penn websites. And they were the ones I believe and this is public now because Penn attached it to their response to the lawsuit I filed and I believe they were the first ones to mention that I had gone to private school and that they were questioning if I was low-income. RG: Penn officials, of course, have said the interview was appropriate. RG: And did they say anything along those lines? As in her case, first responders had experienced similar delays in finding and reaching the building, and difficulties removing Driver once they did due to the same accessibility issues. Fierceton clarified her identity during the interview:[4]. He died of his heart attack within 12 minutes of arrival at the hospital. I tried to help as much as I could. Theyre not on a website. But I also think it has something to do with the way that we understand poverty. Which as Im sure youve learned since is a complete and fundamental misunderstanding of poverty . I wrote a poem about the actual what the message was, which is so cheesy and Im cringing at my 17-year-old self [laughs], but it was about the healing power of gratitude. box, it's like you have to fit yourself in, saying: Are you the first in your family to attend? Our focus is not on the debate it reviews over Mackenzie Fierceton's accounts of her life, though we affirm her integrity. Is it as well explored territory as a school-to-prison pipeline? But the acclaim quickly devolved into acrimony as the university and the Rhodes Trust began questioning aspects of Fiercetons backstory. Yes, to my lawyer who communicated it to me. And in the U.S., there is much more pressure to pull kids out of homes, right? But I got a bit of pressure from Penn to do that. Betsy Reed is The Intercepts editor in chief. RG: who was, I believe now, the acting provost. [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. Yes, definitely. But teachers noticed that Fierceton often seemed physically uncomfortable in her mother's presence, and a close friend noted that she was often injured. And it was also the community was kind of divided. [2][e], A spokesman for the D.A. I reached out for a response to the University of Pennsylvania and also Provost Beth Winkelstein and General Counsel Wendy White for a response, as well as to Mackenzies biological mother. There were some pretty basic errors, such as my name, my birth name, and my birth place, and claiming that I didnt have a sibling, that I wasnt low-income, a lot of facts that were pretty easily disputed. And that dynamic, I would say, [laughs] probably played a big part in all of this. Mother and daughter both told the same stories they had earlier; Morrison depicted her daughter as "willful and intense", claiming she had bought and read many books to try to help her understand the issues she said Fierceton had. Whereas white parents, a lot of times, it is much harder the bar is much higher to remove them from their homes because their whiteness or possibly class privilege or whatever identities that they have that might not fit a social worker or judges or whoevers involved perception of whose kids should be in the foster system. In her reading, Tracy came across an article that congratulated Mackenzie Fierceton, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, on being named a Rhodes Scholar. But in this application they had two questions which are to determine financial aid. Some people were very much on my side; some people were very much, I think, in that sort of cognitive dissonance of: This cant be true because if it can, then Im in danger. Penn officials, of course, have said the interview was appropriate. And Penn is still claiming that those are fake journals. And then as the different internships, and then I went to get my masters in social work and all of this happened, I started to see that continue in different capacities while I was in different roles, seeing that theme in this relationship between foster care and the criminal justice system. And then the other question was: Are you the first in your family to attend college? [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. And eventually they filed a big wrongful death lawsuit in August 2020. And I started interviewing people who were in the class where he died and who were in nearby classes where he died, who knew him, and paramedics who were Penn paramedics and just as many people as I could. I really appreciate it. That is when I would trace it back to. And so can you talk a little bit about your research? RG: And how much did she challenge your medical condition after that beating? And especially, again, like these stereotypes of black and brown, low-income families, the knee-jerk reaction is like: Oh, well, theyre unequipped to be a parent. So it makes some sense that they were very similar questions. A college counselor suggested she apply through QuestBridge, a nonprofit that helps qualified students in need find schools that will give them full financial support. And she ended up responding right away, and asked to get on a phone call. Whereas white parents, a lot of times, it is much harder the bar is much higher to remove them from their homes because their whiteness or possibly class privilege or whatever identities that they have that might not fit a social worker or judges or whoevers involved perception of whose kids should be in the foster system. 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