I n November 2020, University of Pennsylvania graduate student Mackenzie Fierceton, 24, won the Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University. Raised in Chesterfield, Missouri, a West County suburb of St. Louis, she attended and graduated from the Whitfield School in Creve Coeur. he asked in the first. I didnt encounter many of them in the two years that I was living in foster families. RG: I want to talk about where you think that pushback came from. [1] It appended both the Rhodes report and OSC's as exhibits. How long were you in the hospital? I want to read from The New Yorker article again, it says: The Web site of Penn First Plus, a university program founded in 2018 to support F.G.L.I. So these are all things Ive learned [laughs] I learned after the fact. And that dynamic, I would say, [laughs] probably played a big part in all of this. He died of his heart attack within 12 minutes of arrival at the hospital. 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. RG: Like questioning: How much blood? Uh, my lawyer. And if those things are true, and youre also struggling in poverty, then something is deeply wrong with the system. And even now, The New Yorker quotes a lot from my childhood journals describing my abuse. box, it's like you have to fit yourself in, saying: Are you the first in your family to attend? We dont believe you. Ryan Grim: This weeks guest on Deconstructed is Mackenzie Fierceton, who was the subject of a recent story in The New Yorker. "They are the people that support you, look out for you, & love you unconditionally. And those other people are kind of like the orphans that we think of in Dickensian novels. I have some of my own theories, but I want to hear yours. And then very quickly turn to very specific questions about different instances of abuse. 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. I think its a reflection of the systemic prejudices . 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. And then the other question was: Are you the first in your family to attend college? RG: Is that what sent you into a surreal state? And with that, like you said, notion of: Well, theres no way that you went to private school and all of this could have still happened, or that you could be low-income now and this idea that socioeconomic status is permanent. 's office explained the decision to drop the charges against Morrison as based on new evidence that had emerged. 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. Is it as well explored territory as a school-to-prison pipeline? RG: Right. So how is a person who is filling out this application supposed to know what definition youre supposed to use? Mackenzie Fierceton was named Penn's 2021 Rhodes Scholar. Theyre not on a website. 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. 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. MF: And with that, like you said, notion of: Well, theres no way that you went to private school and all of this could have still happened, or that you could be low-income now and this idea that socioeconomic status is permanent. "We would never have believed any of it if we weren't living it." And I think psychologically one way people feel safer about it is to say: No, that happens to other people. Mhmm. Mackenzie Fierceton is the child of a doctor who attended a private prep school in a wealthy suburb. Again, this is obviously secondhand, because I was unconscious. Theres people who span all different kinds of experiences. 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. It's a hard scholarship to win, but Fierceton. [19] The New York Post wrote that "[t]he case exposes the murky underbelly of elite schools like Penn. This was about a week after. But in this application they had two questions which are to determine financial aid. 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. 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. Others echoed the criticism. Penn officials, of course, have said the interview was appropriate. [3] In high school there, Fierceton was a model student. 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. [14], The publicity led 150 Penn students to stage a walkout from classes to demonstrate in support of Fierceton. Mackenzie Fierceton, C'20, has been awarded a 2021 Rhodes Scholarship for graduate study at the University of Oxford. But I guess I cant say for sure. So Rachel had it and Penn disputed it. So to me it was pretty clear that it likely came from them. MF: 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. 207 1,590 6,062 Show this thread Mackenzie Fierceton @MFierceton Aug 8 Will never not make my day to see this on the shelf. On Saturday afternoon, Fierceton said she found herself in a Zoom meeting for several hours with 10 other finalists from this region. She had not, she insisted, written her original essay with the intent of increasing her chances of admission. I think they have said, well, theres different definitions and the dean who is the dean of the grad school said: Well, thats not our definition. But they just assumed theres no way that it could have happened. 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. The reality star has struggled with drug addiction for years. "She was a foster child, but not for long enough. [1]:95, Judge Kristine Allen Kerr ultimately held for Morrison. RG: Thats been my understanding of it. in America. And then the focus shifted to the second box. [3], Before that happened, Fierceton withdrew from the scholarship on her own. By the end of the year she was in a third foster home. She was . She lost consciousness and was taken to the hospital, where she spent three days in intensive care. 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. RG: That was Mackenzie Fierceton and thats our show. Mackenzie, for her part, was accepted to the University of Pennsylvania and, in her sophomore year, won a Rhodes Scholarship. who was, I believe now, the acting provost. Cause I had assumed it was her. "[27], For the Penn investigation, Fierceton relied on the definition on the webpage for Penn First Plus, the university's support program for FGLI students, which includes the language about the student having a "strained or limited relationship" with the graduate parent. And you experienced that yourself, right? 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. Mackenzies critics even began nitpicking how much blood was in her hair while she was in the intensive care unit. She and a separate witness said records of child-welfare agencies from years earlier are not easy to obtain. Fellow students, their parents and Whitfield faculty also noticed signs which led them to suspect abuse. What about Rhodes? And I was having flashbacks to cross-examinations and depositions Id given about this which later made sense, because we found out that Wendy White had spoken with one of Carries defense lawyers. 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. And it became pretty clear to me that they had spoken to Carrie and or seen medical records. She was diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome and released after three weeks. It quotes her as saying "If you find me dead, it was my mom. If we review your medical records, are we going to see you had broken ribs and facial injuries? Because Im not under any illusion that Im the typical foster kid. Deconstructed is a production of First Look Media and The Intercept. And Im glad that people are having the kinds of systemic discussions that are so key to all of this. 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. So they didnt ask about that in this meeting. [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. And we entered the meeting and it immediately felt really hostile to me. After her mother left, Fierceton got out of bed, found a spare set of keys and drove herself to school. Then the University of Pennsylvania accused her of lying. She was one of only 32 high school students selected from a pool of 2300 applicants. Fierceton wished that she had been more willing to correct mistaken impressions that she might have made and at the time "just kind of crumbled behind the pressure. 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. so that people have the background there. Its a very different lifestyle. She was hospitalized twice in 2014 due to injuries she says were inflicted by her mother; after the second stay, which lasted three weeks, the state removed her from the house and placed her in foster care. And it just felt pretty devastating to me, because for so long I hid everything, Id been so ashamed, and I already felt so much guilt in coming forward then. And I ended up reading the comments, and the comments were just horrendous. Because thats not how we understand poverty. But I just had a bad feeling and I started to try to find more information. You know, I honestly dont know. Thats been my understanding of it. 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. Uh, my lawyer. [5] Lovelace was also arrested and charged with sexual abuse. 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. MF: Yeah. And how much confidence do you have that that anonymous complainer was Carrie, your biological mother. I was a teenager and I was in the hospital and I didnt have any perspective. But that was definitely a driving force for why I decided, ultimately, to withdraw because I felt like: OK, federal prison is no joke. 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? And do you know Linda Tirado? But her mother wasnt finished with her. [4] After gathering all the evidence, they approached Driver's widow, Roxanne Logan, who had not been informed of the accessibility issues and delays involved in her husband's death; in fact she had been given the impression he had been evacuated from the building almost as soon as he began experiencing symptoms. And the staff member saying like: I understand, can you please give Mackenzie an estimate of how many questions are left? I do think that it is a huge defense mechanism that people deploy. I think this is a conversation not necessarily for people who are still in question about what happened here. And back in high school, it was a similar thing. Our focus is not on the debate it reviews over Mackenzie Fierceton's accounts of her life, though we affirm her integrity. But it did open with these literary elements of what I was feeling like, and the experience I was having in those moments. And they released this quote-unquote report in April of 2021 with their findings. So normally the term FGLI, its just an umbrella term for both. His master's level university, Ivy College Pennsylvania, also failed to grant him the acquired master's degree . "[2], On her application, Fierceton recounted her background and the unexpected way it led to her becoming a foster child. And that was the end of it, right? I do think that it is a huge defense mechanism that people deploy. 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." 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 my biological family did not fit those stereotypes, and I think that was really hard for people to process. Teen Mom alum Mackenzie Edwards' husband Ryan Edwards is to be arrested soon. Given the pandemic, Rhodes Scholar judges interviewed candidates over Zoom. There were so many there are, I guess I should say so many moving pieces. Yes, it may be true that institutions like UPenn give students like Fierceton opportunities because of their story, but that does not mean her narrative is theirs for the taking. The department of social services substantiated Mackenzies allegations, as did the Missouri Child Abuse and Neglect Review Board, which is an independent state panel. The wellness director told her she would have to notify the state's Department of Social Services (DSS) of the incident. Michael Hayes, who had prosecuted Morrison, told the Chronicle that "The more I learned, the less certain I became about what really happened. Both reports refrained from expressing an opinion about the truth of her abuse allegations. 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. I think [its] called Penn First, I believe, and it seems like you socially spent a lot of time with them? Was there abuse before this? 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. 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. Who are your biological family? MF: And that is, I felt very defeated too. "You can't couch-surf in a pandemic", Norton said. But once I got out of the hospital and I learned that information, I remembered that a classmate had died in the same basement about 16 months earlier. Fierceton grew up in a wealthy community and attended an elite private school in a St. Louis suburb. That evening that the article came out is when I got a call from the reporter saying: I got this anonymous email that said X, Y, Z, and I wanted to let you know. 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. I think this is a conversation not necessarily for people who are still in question about what happened here. Her mentor told Licht afterwards that "it felt like an attack on a student" and that she had never experienced anything like it. And so I was like, of course, Im going to respond again. She had begun to remember more about the incident, and while still not certain how it had happened recalled that before it she and her mother had been fighting about Lovelace. Thats not in question. 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. RG: Interesting. So one question was: Are you from a low-income family? And its striking to see just the continuing to push of what happened. There, she wandered the hallways until she found the history teacher, and collapsed. [2], Morrison, no longer employed by St. Luke's, then began the process of trying to restore her reputation by having all references to it removed from the public record. Did she lie? [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. "[2][j], The evening the story ran, Ruderman called Fierceton back and told her she had received some anonymously written emails casting doubt on what she had written. "[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. And she had gone to a private school growing up. [2] Ruderman's story, published the next day, began:[13]. And I asked in the email exchange: Is this about the anonymous email? And she had gone to a private school growing up. The university writes: After those who knew Fierceton raised questions about her story, it was investigated not just once, but several times, and not just by Penn faculty and staff, but also the Rhodes Trust. RG: Right. Fierceton's life story, as well as her self-identification as a "first generation" college student, came under scrutiny by the university when an anonymous email alleged that Fierceton was not. To a private prep school in a St. Louis suburb Yorker quotes a lot from my childhood journals my...: No, that happens to other people are having the kinds of experiences foster! Questions about different instances of abuse just the continuing to push of what here. Against Morrison as based on New evidence that had emerged me dead, it 's like you have that anonymous! I was like, and the experience I was a foster child but! Private prep school in a pandemic '', Norton said up in a meeting! 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