Yeah. She told Brandt it was her mother, and asked her to keep Morrison from coming to her room. My life is over, Im in the hospital, Im at rock bottom. You didnt grow up in crumbling projects your entire life. Enough blood? [Laughs.] But it was in the sense of: I didnt recognize myself both because I was beaten and my face was swollen and whatever, and I felt like at rock bottom and broken. Have you ever heard of her case? 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. And so, Mackenzie, you and I were just talking offline. 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. "[2], When Fierceton returned to the St. Louis area on vacations and breaks, she stayed with friends. 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. [2], DSS kept Morrison on its child-abuser registry, as it still believed the allegations to be founded, and a petition to its Child Abuse and Neglect Review Board to have her removed was denied. Were close to done. [1]:111112, Penn's investigators asked Fierceton why she had pretended to be asking on another's behalf when she made her queries within the university. On Saturday afternoon, Fierceton said she found herself in a Zoom meeting for several hours with 10 other finalists from this region. First of all, thats one box? 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. She was an independent student when she applied. January 7, 2022. Now Im sobbing, Im hyperventilating, and the staff member interrupted and said: Can we have an estimate of how much time is left? And I just want to read this for people. 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! She is suing Penn for defamation, arguing its real goal in investigating her was to discredit her as a witness in and retaliate for a wrongful death suit filed against the university by the widow of a fellow student which Fierceton instigated. "[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. And how much did she challenge your medical condition after that beating? Mackenzie Fierceton didn't come until much later, but with good reason. Im part of a wrongful death lawsuit that was filed in August, 2020. 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 then theres also foster siblings in the sense of other people who are in the foster care system who youre living with. And my biological family did not fit those stereotypes, and I think that was really hard for people to process. Our theme music was composed by Bart Warshaw. So [laughs] I feel like I could go on for hours about that. 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. But there was another definition that was also along those lines that I fit, that was, again, public on the website. She expressed some concern to Penn staff that if she won, the media attention might incite her mother and her family to attack her reputation, and expressed on a form she filed with Penn as part of the process a concern of hers that FGLI students such as herself were "pressured to be someone they were not amidst their application process." Fierceton applied for the Rhodes Scholarship with assistance from Penn's Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. That is when I would trace it back to. Cause I had assumed it was her. RG: And The New Yorker article also alluded to a few things that you had gotten loose with in a couple of paragraphs. I think they do have a richer experience if they have more diversity around them, but that is more the point. I n November 2020, University of Pennsylvania graduate student Mackenzie Fierceton, 24, won the Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University. They reported it to the state's child-abuse hotline. So that was what the actual poem and personal statement was about [laughs.] "You can't couch-surf in a pandemic", Norton said. It quotes her as saying "If you find me dead, it was my mom. 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. That is when I would trace it back to. MF: So to me it was pretty clear that it likely came from them. RG: Is that what sent you into a surreal state? Even though I had, again, written statements from two ICU nurses who took care of me saying: Yes, there was blood, [laughs] theres photographs, and there still was the argument of like, there wasnt enough blood or your face wasnt so distorted you could couldnt tell who you were. What was the response from the readers of the paper? By the end of the year she was in a third foster home. Cops have accused the MTV star of stalking as well as violation of an order of protection. "She lies better than I can tell the truth. RG: or in graduate school. At Oxford University, Mackenzie Fierceton will conduct research on the "foster care-to-prison" pipeline. If we review your medical records, are we going to see you had broken ribs and facial injuries? So the Rhodes Trust ended up after their quote-investigation, and I submitted all the evidence, they ended up still recommending that my scholarship be rescinded, uh, but I had another opportunity to respond to their report, which I absolutely wanted to do. "We would never have believed any of it if we weren't living it." In the lawsuit filed on Dec. 21, Fierceton, a 2021 School of Social Policy . 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. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us at. So one of the questions that you mentioned that they asked was about your essay , which, correct me if Im wrong, but I think it begins saying something along the lines of: Youre in the hospital, you looked in the mirror, and you couldnt recognize yourself, you couldnt recognize your features. RG: And did they say anything along those lines? [7] The charges against Lovelace were dropped later for lack of evidence. [9][3], In her sophomore year, Fierceton, already majoring in political science,[3] decided to pursue social work as a career, with the goal of being a voice for children in foster care like the ones she had come to know. So that was, I think later on that specific line came into question. ", When Penn's Office of Student Conduct confronted Fierceton with the discrepancy between her statement on two of her applications that she ", The exact definition of FGLI relevant to forms Fierceton filled out is a key point in the Rhodes Trust and Penn investigations of her. So, yes, an article came out in the local paper saying that she had been arrested. So one question was: Are you from a low-income family? Even though I had, again, written statements from two ICU nurses who took care of me saying: Yes, there was blood, [laughs] theres photographs, and there still was the argument of like, there wasnt enough blood or your face wasnt so distorted you could couldnt tell who you were. 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. Like I just havent, really, there to be a lot of information about me publicly. 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 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. RG: I think for a lot of us, we have to sort of other poverty and abuse and put it in a box, partly, to protect ourselves. And I didnt get an answer. This could happen to me. MF: You know, I honestly dont know. [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. Theyre not on a website. Mackenzie Fierceton, a 2016 graduate of Whitfield School in Creve Coeur, lost the scholarship after allegations surfaced that she had provided "false narratives" to education officials, the New. Period." And Penn is still claiming that those are fake journals. 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. She had bruises all over her body in different stages of healing an obvious sign of child abuse., No, I found it before. [3] "Mackenzie may have centered certain aspects of her background to the exclusion of othersfor reasons we are certain she feels are validin a way that creates a misimpression," the report said. But it did open with these literary elements of what I was feeling like, and the experience I was having in those moments. Detective Carrie Brandt, who had been planning to follow up on the hotline report at Whitfield that day, instead interviewed Fierceton at the hospital. 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. 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. And then instantly people started picking her story apart. But the acclaim quickly devolved into acrimony as the university and the Rhodes Trust began questioning aspects of Fiercetons backstory. She ruined her moms career. But in this application they had two questions which are to determine financial aid. We started building this, and this is exactly who we built it for. She had bruises all over her body in different stages of healing an obvious sign of child abuse.. ", Morrison said. In the transcript, I wrote it was really just focused on: What happened the night you went into foster care? 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. So those questions came like later on and were really a part of the initial interrogation. And then very quickly turn to very specific questions about different instances of abuse. How much research has been done on the foster-care-to-prison-pipeline? It's a hard scholarship to win, but Fierceton. Fierceton said that when she had applied to SP2 as a sophomore she had cleared it with the school's associate director of admissions, who told her that a student's biological parents were not relevant to that definition, and said the same thing in 2020 (Penn's OSC interviewed the associate director and SP2's associate director for financial aid whom Fierceton said she had a similar conversation with; neither remembered speaking with Fierceton about the issue)[1]:111112). At the end of the march they were addressed by Fierceton and other FGLI students. 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. Is it as well explored territory as a school-to-prison pipeline? [3], By the end of the interview Fierceton was crying. It recommended the scholarship be rescinded. Thats all it takes to support the journalism you rely on. But those definitions arent anywhere to be found. 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". Mackenzie Morrison was born Mackenzie Terrell but took her mother's name after her father, Billy Terrell, who worked in soap operas, left. My understanding is there were two anonymous emails. Our concern is instead with the conduct of our. And she was shocked. I cant remember if it was in the Rhodes essay or in another essay that, in hindsight, you wouldve tightened up. 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. The nurse also reported bruises all over Fierceton's body, in different stages of healing, considered an indicator of possible physical abuse. The university's police did not know at first where the building was and the city's paramedics did not know how to get to it. 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. [3], After the interview White emailed Morrison about how it went; she wrote back regretting that Fierceton continued to tell the same story. And at the time I was like: Why what? This can happen to someone in my community. And they released this quote-unquote report in April of 2021 with their findings. Mackenzies critics even began nitpicking how much blood was in her hair while she was in the intensive care unit. (Photo from Mackenzie Fierceton) Penn student Mackenzie Fierceton was selected as one of 32 American recipients of the 2021 Rhodes Scholarship, becoming Penn's 31st Rhodes scholar since the scholarship's inception in 1902.. Fierceton, a 2020 College graduate, is currently working on her . Its a very under-researched field. 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. And we had a fairly lengthy conversation, just kind of going through the ins and outs of my childhood and left it at, she was like: OK, I understand now and Im just going to leave this. Is it as well explored territory as a school-to-prison pipeline? The article by reporter Rachel Aviv was called How an Ivy League School Turned Against a Student, and it tells the story of an extraordinary battle between Mackenzie and the University of Pennsylvania. MF: Yeah. And so can you talk a little bit about your research? So I started while I was an undergrad and was taking classes at the same time. Morrison told White in an email. You have a good education and youre clearly smart. I think for a lot of us, we have to sort of other poverty and abuse and put it in a box, partly, to protect ourselves. And I think that she kind of encompassed a lot of the stereotypes that people, and also the Penn administrators have about what FGLI students are when in reality, those of us who are part of the community know that theres so many shapes and sizes of FGLI students. The dean of SP2 told Penn otherwise, but Fierceton noted that the school had never shared what its definition was. [2], Classmates who told Fierceton this also noted the similarities to another medical emergency in September 2018, when a 38-year-old SP2 graduate named Cameron Driver had suffered a cardiac event during a class in Caster's basement. Like, they want to curate a diverse experience for their well-off students, so that they can say that they had this diverse experience in college . When they did, they were unable to get stretchers or backboards down Caster's stairways or elevators as there was insufficient space. And so they had to see some benefit to them in doing this. Yes. Mackenzie Fierceton was championed as a former foster youth who had overcome an abusive childhood and won a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. 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. And I didnt really know any information, except for that he had had a medical emergency in class and then been pronounced dead at the hospital. Photograph by Robbie Lawrence for The New Yorker Mackenzie Fierceton grew up in a middle-class suburb of St. Louis. Her mother had no explanation for the injuries, other than saying perhaps she had done it to herself. RG: Talk just a little bit about that case . 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. "She was a foster child, but not for long enough. RG: And one of the main things they pointed to was that she had gone to this private school . And that felt very powerful in an institution where the overwhelming majority of people are coming from two-parent households, extremely wealthy, like a whole nother level of wealth that I have really ever seen, in my life in terms of just around me, like the 1 percent to the 0.001 percent. on about your day, ask yourself: How likely is it that the story you just read would have been produced by a different news outlet if The Intercept hadnt done it? 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. Now Im sobbing, Im hyperventilating, and the staff member interrupted and said: Can we have an estimate of how much time is left? MF: 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. But it was definitely something I saw happening sort of this funneling of kids from the child welfare to criminal justice system. Then the Philly paramedics couldnt figure out how to get to the building and then they couldnt get me out. The reality star has struggled with drug addiction for years. Am I right about that? Yeah. RG: And I just want to read this for people. 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? I cant remember if it was in the Rhodes essay or in another essay that, in hindsight, you wouldve tightened up. [Laughs.] And did they say anything along those lines? I have some of my own theories, but I want to hear yours. [5] Lovelace was also arrested and charged with sexual abuse. Like, they want to curate a diverse experience for their well-off students, so that they can say that they had this diverse experience in college . 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. Those investigations revealed that for the first 17 years of her life, Fierceton was raised by her mother, Dr. Carrie Morrison, an accomplished physician. How many people kind of fit that category that you interacted with, and how many kind of fit closer to your category, not just in your own interactions, but also in your research? So thats the background of him. [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. 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. Then the University of Pennsylvania accused her of lying. [2], Two weeks after the New Yorker article was published, Fierceton gave an interview to The Intercept's Ryan Grim for an installment of the Deconstructed podcast. 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. he asked in the first. Penn has released its hold on a master of social work degree from Mackenzie Fierceton the former Rhodes Scholarship recipient who filed a lawsuit against the University following its investigation into allegations that she falsified her status as a first-generation, low-income student and survivor of abuse. Two weeks into the school year, she realized she had been wrong. 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. But I got a bit of pressure from Penn to do that. Given the pandemic, Rhodes Scholar judges interviewed candidates over Zoom. 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. She is poor, but she has not been poor for long enough. 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? Like, it seemed like an airtight case from my perspective. And its striking to see just the continuing to push of what happened. The 35-year-old has been hit with two warrants for his arrest. Mackenzie Fierceton: Yeah. And she had gone to a private school growing up. Its virtually almost an unknown phenomena or to people who are working in the field, its certainly known, but theres been very little research on it, which partially complicates my Ph.D., because theres so little to draw upon. 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. This was about a week after. She was . But I guess I cant say for sure. [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. And the chain of events that happened leading into foster care? Im curious, having dealt with so many people along the way, who are questioning your story, how do you feel like the boxes play into this? Its practically half of Americans, or more. It's from there the story unraveled. I have some of my own theories, but I want to hear yours. 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. RG: And what was the first-generation community like on campus? Attached were copies of the Missouri court orders expunging Morrison's arrest and removing her name from the DSS registry. So the students had to form a human chain from the first floor down to the basement where all our classes are to relay instructions from the paramedics, the Philadelphia paramedics, to the professor who was, to my understanding, performing CPR. 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. [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. Theyre not on a website. I do think that it is a huge defense mechanism that people deploy. And is it somewhat of a defense mechanism that people deploy to protect themselves? 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. And I think psychologically one way people feel safer about it is to say: No, that happens to other people. It didnt, though, to the University of Pennsylvania. Its a very under-researched field. [2], At the beginning of the next school year, Fierceton was examined by her pediatrician, who noticed a large bruise on her arm but chose not to X-ray it, a decision the doctor later regretted. In addition it offered details of what its own investigation had concluded about Fierceton's childhood and adolescence that led OSC to believe it was likely that she had exaggerated or fabricated outright her claims about her mother. She was one of only 32 high school students selected from a pool of 2300 applicants.
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