MF: I think youre right. RG: Rather than it being for the purpose of benefiting the students themselves. 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. Is it as well explored territory as a school-to-prison pipeline? She definitely asked some questions about it. MF: So thats the background of him. In November 2020, Mackenzie Fierceton was one of just 32 students to be awarded the Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford. 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". Teachers at Whitfield who had been supportive while she was there dropped out of touch. And please go and leave us a rating or a review it helps people find the show. [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. 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. What was the response from the readers of the paper? And so if its a well-educated white girl from a private school, thats way too close to home for a lot of these elites. And they released this quote-unquote report in April of 2021 with their findings. [2] She was also working two jobs, as a policy fellow with Philadelphia City Council and another interning in social work at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. [2] Ruderman's story, published the next day, began:[13]. RG: Well, Mackenzie, thank you so much for joining me and sharing your story. 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. Ultimately, she lost her Rhodes Scholarship, and Penn withheld her masters degree, demanding a letter of apology. [14], The publicity led 150 Penn students to stage a walkout from classes to demonstrate in support of Fierceton. That they would forward charges to the federal government of wire fraud. 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. So that was what the actual poem and personal statement was about [laughs.] RG: 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. 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. And it was also the community was kind of divided. And still, it was just like: Nope. [3], Before that happened, Fierceton withdrew from the scholarship on her own. And I suspected that it was about this anonymous email. And we entered the meeting and it immediately felt really hostile to me. "How much does one have to suffer to have value? @RachelAviv for @NewYorker RG: so that people have the background there. Just a quick circling back, Im actually not sure if it was her who first reached out or if it was General Counsel Wendy White, because I later found out that they had a phone call about 36 hours after the article came out and seemed to talk pretty extensively, and then there were a lot of emails that happened. And then she hired a law firm and eventually they were doing their own investigation for several months. So you use what you have, uh, which are the definitions that were already out there. 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., 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. Mackenzie Fierceton is the child of a doctor who attended a private prep school in a wealthy suburb. I want to talk about where you think that pushback came from. Fierceton was released after four days. Penn also noted that her name change had the effect, whether she had intended it or not, of making her background harder to research. 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. 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. Penn, she claimed, had leaked that information to the Inquirer whose editor-in-chief was married to Louisa Shepard, the university's news director, whom she named as a defendant along with Finkelstein, White, and the university's board of trustees. So yes, I know that is me. On Saturday afternoon, Fierceton said she found herself in a Zoom meeting for several hours with 10 other finalists from this region. 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. What happened the night before? Right. And I think said something along the lines of there were things missing and it was distorted. Was there abuse before this? 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? But it was definitely something I saw happening sort of this funneling of kids from the child welfare to criminal justice system. She was one of only 32 high school students selected from a pool of 2300 applicants. [2], One day in September 2014, she told the history teacher about Lovelace's abuse. And all of us, no matter what our situation, are not completely safe from it. So one question was: Are you from a low-income family? One, Michael Raffaele, said he believed Morrison was trying to leave Fierceton with no other options. Fierceton grew up in a wealthy community and attended an elite private school in a St. Louis suburb. I cant remember if it was in the Rhodes essay or in another essay that, in hindsight, you wouldve tightened up. Because thats not how we understand poverty. And then theres also foster siblings in the sense of other people who are in the foster care system who youre living with. 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. "[2], When Fierceton returned to the St. Louis area on vacations and breaks, she stayed with friends. RG: And what was the first-generation community like on campus? There were three instances of attempted contact from her family or foster family. Enough blood? And I decided to do it cause I felt like I had nothing to lose and I ended up making gratitude lists every day for years and it really was a very healing experience for me. The mother of a friend of Fierceton's recalls that when she told Morrison on the phone that she "was not interested" in hearing what Morrison had to say, she got angry and confrontational. RG: And whats the difference between the U.S. and English system? She and a separate witness said records of child-welfare agencies from years earlier are not easy to obtain. Did they make that threat in writing or was that . 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. "We would never have believed any of it if we weren't living it." I was like: Great. Thats the reality of it, but we dont want to think of it that way. Photograph by Robbie Lawrence for The New Yorker Mackenzie Fierceton grew up in a middle-class suburb of St. Louis. "[3][l], The Chronicle story led to nationwide coverage,[17][18] most of which framed the narrative as Penn and the Rhodes Trust had in their reports, depicting Fierceton as yet another exposed fraud. And then the focus shifted to the second box. RG: Penn officials, of course, have said the interview was appropriate. 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. [2] They learned that SP2 had no real protocol for an emergency situation in the building. [2], Two months later the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. RG: 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. In addition to the complaint she had made against Lovelace, a similar complaint to police that her mother was abusing prescription drugs also did not yield any evidence to support it. A Rhodes Scholar who claimed that she had grown up in the foster system has lost her scholarship after an investigation revealed that she grew up in a middle-class family and attended a $30,000-per-annum private school. Because thats not how we understand poverty. RG: Thats been my understanding of it. 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. Why would I do that? [Laughs.] And we have this idea of what a person looks like who commits a crime or who gets arrested for child abuse. Her mother was arrested and charged with child abuse, but those charges were later dropped; state courts later expunged the arrest and ordered her removed from the state's child-abuser registry. This can happen to someone in my community. Last edited on 10 February 2023, at 00:35, Learn how and when to remove this template message, the state's Department of Social Services, tortious interference with a business relationship, negligent infliction of emotional distress, "Verified Answer and New Matter to Plaintiff's Complaint", "How an Ivy League School Turned Against a Student", "Deconstructed: Mackenzie Fierceton on Her Battle With UPenn", "Ex Alderman Newsletter 168 And Chesterfield 113", "St. Luke's physician charged with felony child abuse", "Abuse charges against former St. Luke's physician are dropped", "Henry Lovelace, owner of Wild Horse Fitness Passes Away", "Former St. Louis woman who spent time in foster care named Rhodes Scholar", "Thousands petition U. to cut ties with Philly PD, reform militarized campus 'police state', "Penn student who aged out of foster care wins prestigious Rhodes Scholarship", "Following public outcry, Penn lifts hold on former Rhodes Scholar Mackenzie Fierceton's master's degree", "University Mourns Loss of Cameron Avant Driver", "Student loses Rhodes scholarship over allegations of lying about her foster care upbringing", "Former St. Louis-area student loses Rhodes scholarship over 'false narratives', "Student Misleads With Story of Poverty and Abuse and Wins Rhodes ScholarshipNow, the Media Is Defending Her", "Did This Rhodes Wannabe Lie About Her Background? Doctors diagnosed her with epilepsy, telling her the head injuries that had resulted in her earlier hospitalizations may have been a contributing factor to her developing it. 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. And so I did definitely have that kind of like: I have no idea what else is going to convince these people. You didnt grow up in crumbling projects your entire life. And if those things are true, and youre also struggling in poverty, then something is deeply wrong with the system. He died after a medical emergency in a basement of UPenn's Caster Building in 2018. You have a good education and youre clearly smart. And its striking to see just the continuing to push of what happened. [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. But it doesnt mean you were always low-income, just that you are now. [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. Theres people who span all different kinds of experiences. Like you said, I was called into a meeting. And, honestly, first-generation is never something Ive really identified with fully. MF: She, to my knowledge, has stuck by that. [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. Her admission to Oxford was unaffected, and she began her graduate studies in sociology there later in the year, with a Penn professor covering her tuition. But I got a bit of pressure from Penn to do that. And so, Mackenzie, you and I were just talking offline. In The New Yorker piece, a nurse assigned to Mackenzie is quoted as saying, She had two black eyes, and her hair was full of blood. [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. 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. And I was actually really nervous about doing any press for this reason. MF: So [laughs] I feel like I could go on for hours about that. But it did open with these literary elements of what I was feeling like, and the experience I was having in those moments. 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). 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. And I just want to read this for people. Why were you in the hospital that long? [1]:86, Morrison prospered in her medical career, and she provided generously for her daughter, allowing her to ride horses, go on river rafting trips and attend exclusive private schools, such as Whitfield, in nearby Creve Coeur, where annual tuition was almost $30,000. She had wanted to appeal the Rhodes committee's findings, but Rafaelle advised her that Penn had hinted to him that it might consider referring the matter to federal prosecutors on the grounds that she had lied about being FGLI on her Free Application for Federal Student Aid form. After a teacher reported what they felt was abuse, a social worker came by and your mother was able to just charm the pants off her. You know, I honestly dont know. Mackenzie Fierceton (born Mackenzie Terrell on August 9, 1997; later Mackenzie Morrison,[1]:6364,86) is an American activist and graduate student currently studying at Oxford University. It's from there the story unraveled. 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. [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. Yeah. And Im like: I dont know what else I could give them that would possibly convince them if their belief is as a 15-year-old, 16-year-old was journaling about my experience of abuse and hiding it in an air vent, and it was actually secretly all a plan to like accuse my mother of abuse and go into foster care so I could have a sad story. 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. [i] Ruderman corroborated that later to The New Yorker, saying she was paraphrasing Fierceton's self-identification as FGLI. And so was it later, in a different conversation where they asked about the line in the essay about not being able to recognize yourself or is there some illusion to that in the transcript that you found? In any event, The University of Oxford, where Mackenzies doing her Ph.D., has remained supportive, and in the wake of The New Yorker investigation, and the resulting protests from students and faculty, Penn lifted the hold on her degree. There were so many there are, I guess I should say so many moving pieces. But Mackenzie Fierceton is not a liar. She did not remember what had caused it. 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? The prosecutor eventually dropped the charges and the arrest record was expunged. At the University of Pennsylvania, she received a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in social work through a combined five-year program. RG: So how is a person who is filling out this application supposed to know what definition youre supposed to use? She felt as if it might have been an attempt to intimidate her. In 2019, Fierceton testified in a court hearing that, in September 2014, her mother allegedly pushed her down a set of stairs and hit her in the face several times. 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. And I didnt get an answer. [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. But in this application they had two questions which are to determine financial aid. 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. My understanding is there were two anonymous emails. Her mother had no explanation for the injuries, other than saying perhaps she had done it to herself. I identify with the FGLI umbrella term and definitely being a low-income student, but I've never really called myself a standalone first-generation. Her mentor told Licht afterwards that "it felt like an attack on a student" and that she had never experienced anything like it. RG: as a kid. RG: Did they make that threat in writing or was that . [22] It went into greater detail about her past, providing more substantiation for her abuse allegations from teachers, fellow students and their parents, Carrie Brandt (the police detective who had investigated and arrested Morrison) and her allegations that Morrison had enabled Lovelace's sexual abuse. And it has, has she stuck by that? Is that what sent you into a surreal state? And where are you at school? And so, yes, if the student, then, is no longer useful, I could imagine it turning. 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. The university, in its response to Mackenzies lawsuit, referred to Mackenzies mother as an accomplished physician and claimed that a court had found her allegations not to be credible. [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. Was just like: I have no idea what else is going to convince these people day began. 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