In a 25-minute conversation, she went into detail with Fierceton about her past and what she planned to do with her scholarship. Enough blood? Yes, to my lawyer who communicated it to me. [Laughs.]. RG: Right. Enough bruises? Two weeks into the school year, she realized she had been wrong. Every objective and careful reviewer of the facts in this case including the Rhodes Trust, Penns Office of Student Conduct, a faculty committee from Fiercetons graduate school at Penn, and a hearing panel consisting of faculty and students from other Penn schools concluded that Fierceton had not been truthful.. "[2], When Fierceton returned to the St. Louis area on vacations and breaks, she stayed with friends. Did you go into foster care? She also alleged that Penn had on many occasions failed to follow its own disciplinary policies in its investigation of her.[16]. Her mothers name was entered into a registry of abusers. 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. "How much does one have to suffer to have value? Mackenzie is currently suing the university. Within days of the article being published, the universitys general counsel was in touch with Mackenzies mother. RG: And so when you applied for your masters in social worker or sociology? 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! And I kind of felt like things were resolved until the next week when there was more [laughs] more downhill event. [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. She arrives as a new student at Erinsborough High School and is connected to the . And so I did definitely have that kind of like: I have no idea what else is going to convince these people. It didnt, though, to the University of Pennsylvania. Fierceton was born August 9, 1997, under the name Mackenzie Terrell, in Danbury, Connecticut,[1] to Carrie Morrison, a physician who would later head the breast imaging department at St. Luke's Hospital in Chesterfield, where the couple lived. And we cant acknowledge that, so we then have to pick apart the other pieces of it, and say that well this, this just cant be real. "She has become emboldened over time, and has been successful with her evolving tale for 6 yrs. And so the fact that shes continued pursuing you to me kind of demonstrates the entire case. The Intercept is an independent nonprofit news outlet. Attached were copies of the Missouri court orders expunging Morrison's arrest and removing her name from the DSS registry. The award brings the number of Penn Rhodes Scholars to 31 since the scholarship's inception in 1902. And I just want to read this for people. At Oxford University, Mackenzie Fierceton will conduct research on the "foster care-to-prison" pipeline. I think youre right. Her last set of foster parents had had a baby and she felt less a part of their lives. I have all these three kinds of different rationale and corroborations. Uh, my lawyer. In early 2022, after stories about her struggle with Penn and the Rhodes Trust received national attention from stories in The Chronicle of Higher Education and The New Yorker, commentators took the university, and American elite higher education in general, to task for its use of the story of Fierceton and some other recent Rhodes recipients as poverty porn and its shifting definition of an FGLI student. The University of Pennsylvania on Tuesday announced it will stop withholding a master's degree from Mackenzie Fierceton, the former student at the center of a recent New Yorker magazine. Mackenzie Fierceton was deposed after seeking justice for a mature student, Cameron Driver, 38. woman who won a coveted scholarship in the US to study at Oxford after claiming she was poor, overcame childhood abuse and grew up in foster care lost the opportunity after it emerged she was. One of them, to me, felt pretty clear that it was probably from someone in my biological family, because it had photos of me; it had very specific information that very few people would have and I dont think many people would have random childhood photos of me. And I dont remember all of the questions, but it was a really intense, rapid fire of really difficult and challenging questions. And we entered the meeting and it immediately felt really hostile to me. Mhmm. 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. [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. 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. [2], In public, while she was at Whitfield, Morrison and her daughter seemed to evoke the Gilmore Girls, echoing that television series's main characters, a single mother and her precocious daughter with a close and strong relationship. [2] Fierceton and her mentor reconstructed the conversation and transcribed it; the university has claimed it is inaccurate but the mentor stands by it. RG: And I just want to read this for people. That night at home, Morrison, who had apparently learned of the report, confronted her daughter about it. MF: Yes, definitely. Fierceton grew up in a wealthy community and attended an elite private school in a St. Louis suburb. Now Im sobbing, Im hyperventilating, and the staff member interrupted and said: Can we have an estimate of how much time is left? And its mentioned briefly. RG: Penn didnt respond to a request for comment, but in its response to Mackenzies lawsuit, they write: Penn denies that there are accessibility problems with the Caster Building which contributed to Mackenzies medical emergency or to [Cameron] Drivers death. 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 . And whats the difference between the U.S. and English system? 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. You have a good education and youre clearly smart. And that is, I felt very defeated too. 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. He died of his heart attack within 12 minutes of arrival at the hospital. Yeah, so Penn First for the whole FGLI community. 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. Theyre not on a website. I want to talk about where you think that pushback came from. 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". But when youre filling out a box where its yes or no and theres no more information or kind of! box [laughs], its like you have to fit yourself in, saying: Are you the first in your family to attend? And it was a very similar situation where it took everyone a long time to get to the building. Fierceton, according to Penn's response, had learned during her parents' divorce how to make calls to the child-abuse hotline and that teachers were mandatory reporters. 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. The Inquirer story came out in November 2020. [2] Afterwards Morrison changed her daughter's last name to her own. Are we going to see these injuries? And to me, I'm like I am a household of one, so I am the only person in my family. [23] In mid-April, Penn released Fierceton's master's degree. MF: Yeah. I didnt encounter many of them in the two years that I was living in foster families. 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. Our focus is not on the debate it reviews over Mackenzie Fierceton's accounts of her life, though we affirm her integrity. That is when I would trace it back to. Fierceton wrote to SP2 dean Sara Bachman complaining about the interview, saying she felt "worthlessness, hopelessness, and shame" for a week afterwards. And like: Why are you considered an independent student? [c] Chewing was difficult as well, and she had a feeding tube inserted. They took photographs of Caster's staircases and elevators, and interviewed witnesses and some of the Penn paramedics who had responded. Again following the advice of her college counselor, she did not identify her parents on her application, since she was estranged from both of them (she describes them both as "biological"[3][2]). Michael Hayes, who had prosecuted Morrison, told the Chronicle that "The more I learned, the less certain I became about what really happened. Which as Im sure youve learned since is a complete and fundamental misunderstanding of poverty . And that was the end of it, right? Because processes become Kafkaesque very quickly. It recommended the scholarship be rescinded. Our concern is instead with the conduct of our. Or is this something thats been overlooked? And Im kind of one of the lucky ones where I had really expansive and thorough documentation for all the parts of this story. [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. 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. RG: Or whatever our kind of contemporary version of it is. She ruined her moms career. RG: Right. And did you find this after The New Yorker article was published? RG: or in graduate school. So they didnt ask about that in this meeting. "[20][m] A syndicated morning radio show named Fierceton its "donkey of the day". I think this is a conversation not necessarily for people who are still in question about what happened here. Then the University of Pennsylvania accused her of lying. MF: I think youre right. [2][k], While the trust had come to seriously doubt Fierceton's claims about the severity of her injuries, OSC declined to make a determination on that. 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? Like, it seemed like an airtight case from my perspective. RG: Right. Enough bruises? Nor is she obligated to meet their expectations of her. Fierceton. So normally the term FGLI, its just an umbrella term for both. And its striking to see just the continuing to push of what happened. She entered foster care only at the age of 17, after making a complaint of abuse against Dr.. Later in the year she wrote online that the name change gave her "ownership of her identity" and a sense of agency she had not had before in her life. Youre engaged in a lawsuit with Penn. Were close to done. And eventually they filed a big wrongful death lawsuit in August 2020. 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. The wellness director told her she would have to notify the state's Department of Social Services (DSS) of the incident. And then the other question was: Are you the first in your family to attend college? Others echoed the criticism. One of them, to me, felt pretty clear that it was probably from someone in my biological family, because it had photos of me; it had very specific information that very few people would have and I dont think many people would have random childhood photos of me. She didnt even know what building he had died in. But I guess I cant say for sure. But its relevant to financial aid and the student should check whatever box is going to give them most access to financial aid, which would be yes to both questions. "[2], Fierceton answered yes. Mackenzie Fierceton has lost her Rhodes Scholarship and her University of Pennsylvania master's degree is being held after an anonymous tipster called out alleged inaccuracies in her school and scholarship applications.NY Post photo composite I think this is a conversation not necessarily for people who are still in question about what happened here. And Im Ryan Grim, D.C. bureau chief of The Intercept. 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. [2], "Family is not the people you are related to by blood," she wrote in the diary. The 35-year-old has been hit with two warrants for his arrest. Penn's report notes that Fierceton disputes this account. Fierceton was mentioned in the complaint as having experienced similar issues following her seizure; she was deposed in the suit in March 2021, the month before the university's investigation led her to withdraw from the Rhodes Scholarship. She ruined her moms career. 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. [1]:111112, In her Intercept interview, Grim recounts how this was reported in The New Yorker and asks "So how is a person who is filling out this application supposed to know what definition youre supposed to use?" [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. And please go and leave us a rating or a review it helps people find the show. The notation in her transcript remains. And I asked in the email exchange: Is this about the anonymous email? And is it somewhat of a defense mechanism that people deploy to protect themselves? Right. 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 . Mackenzie Fierceton, C'20, has been awarded a 2021 Rhodes Scholarship for graduate study at the University of Oxford. [2] Morrison's bond was originally set at $40,000, but lowered to $5,000 over prosecutors' strenuous objections. [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. So these are all things Ive learned [laughs] I learned after the fact. 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. MF: At first there was actually, there was contention. And what was the first-generation community like on campus? She chose Fierceton from a list of names she had come up with herself that projected strength, and a petition to the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia was accepted. [i] Ruderman corroborated that later to The New Yorker, saying she was paraphrasing Fierceton's self-identification as FGLI. The Chronicle reports that although she spent her final year of high school in foster care, the student had grown up in an affluent suburb of St. Louis with her mother, a radiologist, and attended private schools. Joining is simple and doesnt need to cost a lot: You can become a sustaining member for as little as $3 or $5 a month. And Penn is still claiming that those are fake journals. 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. "She lies better than I can tell the truth. Its account focused on the Rhodes controversy, discussing her and Driver's suits near the end, and recalling some other recent instances of academic dishonesty, including one 2009 Harvard student whose largely fabricated high school records were only discovered when he had applied for a Rhodes Scholarship. How do I do that in a succinct way when theres a very short word count and youre trying to fit everyones experience in?And so I didnt really think about: Oh, I need to say: This foster sibling who was in the foster care system. 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. I tried to help as much as I could. [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. RG: Right. Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. "[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 she had gone to a private school growing up. 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. 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