RG: Like questioning: How much blood? Theyre not on a website. And theyll openly talk about this. So, yes, an article came out in the local paper saying that she had been arrested. And back in high school, it was a similar thing. And its funny, cause it just made me so frustrated and I actually went back and read it. Mhmm. RG: Well, Mackenzie, thank you so much for joining me and sharing your story. How much research has been done on the foster-care-to-prison-pipeline? There was, yes, disagreement, because I said there was blood in my hair in the essay, they said there wasnt enough blood or there wasnt blood or something. Yeah. I think they do have a richer experience if they have more diversity around them, but that is more the point. They had done their own investigation again, quotes on investigation and then I had submitted over a hundred pages of documents to them. In between those placements, she slept at friends' houses for long periods. 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.. MF: You know, in my personal experience, there were not very many kids who came from a background like me. Mackenzie Fierceton was deposed after seeking justice for a mature student, Cameron Driver, 38. or in graduate school. [2], Morrison's lawyer questioned Fierceton closely about apparent differences between her medical records from the hospital and her description of her injuries in a scholarship application essay the lawyer had obtained, and other details from the latter, such as the "metallic" taste of a feeding tube that was plastic and her claim that she was unable to recognize her own facial features in the hospital mirror, when her medical records showed that her injuries were well short of being even temporarily disfiguring. And then the focus shifted to the second box. Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. And they released this quote-unquote report in April of 2021 with their findings. 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. "[2], Fierceton was one of 15 freshmen made Civic Scholars, a program focused on social justice and community service, with an emphasis on confronting the intersections of identity and privilege. 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. 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. You didnt grow up in crumbling projects your entire life. 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 what area of it are you going to explore with your Ph.D.? Fine. And Im kind of one of the lucky ones where I had really expansive and thorough documentation for all the parts of this story. [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. Fierceton wrote to SP2 dean Sara Bachman complaining about the interview, saying she felt "worthlessness, hopelessness, and shame" for a week afterwards. Enough blood? He died after a medical emergency in a basement of UPenn's Caster Building in 2018. The father's message was forwarded to Penn's general counsel, Wendy White, who got in touch with Morrison. 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. There was also the part of me that was terrified. So thats the background of him. Its a very different lifestyle. She had seen no signs of abuse in the relationship and considered Fierceton to be the dominant personality in it. And at the time I was more in panic mode than like, let me step back and look at this logically, theres absolutely no case, this is an intimidation tactic to try to silence me and sign this NDA and withdraw from the Rhodes and agree to whatever terms they wanted me to agree to you. She was then admitted to Penn on a full scholarship, where she identified as a first-generation low-income (FGLI) student despite her background due to her estrangement from her parents and lack of financial support from them, a classification she says Penn officials told her was acceptable in those circumstances. MF: Yeah. She didnt even know what building he had died in. And how much confidence do you have that that anonymous complainer was Carrie, your biological mother. ", However, in its report, Penn notes that Fierceton had, in an essay (which it allows may not have actually been submitted) for her application for a travel, The Rhodes report acknowledged her documentation of an email she wrote to a reporter at the, Penn's investigation noted that even if Fierceton had been referring to the Chesterfield police rather than the. 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. 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. 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. After her graduation summa cum laude, political science professor Anne Norton invited Fierceton to stay with her and her partner in their large house in Northwest Philadelphia for as long as she needed to in order to complete her master's over the next year. 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. 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. They have since claimed that that is not what they [laughs] insinuated, I believe my former lawyer spoke to it in The New Yorker piece. There, she wandered the hallways until she found the history teacher, and collapsed. While that was not literally true, Penn's own definition of an FGLI student included those who have a "strained or limited" relationship with a parent who has graduated from college. "Without her trauma, she didnt matter", wrote a commentator in the Tulane Hullabaloo. 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. Am I right about that? And I dont remember all of the questions, but it was a really intense, rapid fire of really difficult and challenging questions. ")[3], The OSC report also concluded that nothing in her academic record warranted the revocation of either degree. What kind of a group is that? Mackenzie Fierceton, 24, claimed she was from a poor background and grew up in foster care when she actually attended private school By Phoebe Southworth 13 January 2022 8:00pm Mackenzie. The 35-year-old has been hit with two warrants for his arrest. Morrison told White in an email. That was my personal statement. Theyre not on a website. Anything interesting in that that you noticed? Penn shut down in-person classes and gave students living on campus a week to find somewhere else to live until it was safe to return. And it was a very similar situation where it took everyone a long time to get to the building. 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. And thats an unfortunate reality so many survivors experience, not having a lot of documentation. And then I remembered that my teacher had told me to write a gratitude list. 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. Morrison was arrested and charged with felony child abuse and third-degree assault (a misdemeanor) in the incident that had led to Fierceton's hospitalization, and an additional felony child abuse count for the incident that had triggered the DSS caseworker's visit earlier in the year; the arrest warrant alleged that Morrison had deliberately slammed her daughter's head into the table. [3], By the end of the interview Fierceton was crying. Her mentor told Licht afterwards that "it felt like an attack on a student" and that she had never experienced anything like it. Fierceton considered dropping out, but "if I truly can't do this, where am I supposed to return to? She had bruises all over her body in different stages of healing an obvious sign of child abuse., No, I found it before. And I ended up reaching out to his widow I found her on Facebook and sent her a message just to say: You know, I think I found some information. Anything in particular jump out at you after having read back over that transcript? MF: And its mentioned briefly. MF: No, I found it before. [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?" And I was actually really nervous about doing any press for this reason. [19] The New York Post wrote that "[t]he case exposes the murky underbelly of elite schools like Penn. ", 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. 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. And so, just the immediate reaction was like: Theres no way. Its a very under-researched field. You know, in my personal experience, there were not very many kids who came from a background like me. And its no offense its not like the most profound . Fierceton grew up in a wealthy community and attended an elite private school in a St. Louis suburb. And its mentioned briefly. And even now, The New Yorker quotes a lot from my childhood journals describing my abuse. Since we began the Reshuffled journey, any mention of foster care grabs my attention, the same with Tracy. So Im not sure if it was Penn who reached out to her or vice versa, which I think is also an important question in all of this. 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. Am I right about that? Because processes become Kafkaesque very quickly. MF: Yes, definitely. You have a good education and youre clearly smart. And it felt very similar that, well, this cant be real. [2], In July the OSC concluded its investigation with a 31-page report sent to provost Wendell Pritchett examining Fierceton's background more extensively than the Rhodes Trust had. According to Fierceton, her mother pushed her down the stairs and then beat her extensively at the bottom. And what happened after that? I do think that it is a huge defense mechanism that people deploy. 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. So these are all things Ive learned [laughs] I learned after the fact. Fierceton believes it was likely sent by Morrison or one of her close relatives. RG: And what was the first-generation community like on campus? [Laughs.] And so the fact that shes continued pursuing you to me kind of demonstrates the entire case. Jay Caspian Kang sounded similar themes in two different New York Times newsletters discussing Fierceton's story. And I turned over all this information to his widow. And did you find this after The New Yorker article was published? Fierceton described herself as a first-generation college applicant who came from a low-income, foster-care background. MF: Yeah. And she had gone to a private school growing up. Im part of a wrongful death lawsuit that was filed in August, 2020. RG: First of all, thats one box? 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. [2], The fine was later withdrawn after it was found to conflict with a provision of the university's charter prohibiting the imposition of fines in cases involving academic integrity. Ryan Grim: This weeks guest on Deconstructed is Mackenzie Fierceton, who was the subject of a recent story in The New Yorker. A 24-year-old Rhodes Scholar has left the prestigious program after being accused of lying about growing up poor, reports say. Thank you so much for having me. I didnt encounter many of them in the two years that I was living in foster families. But those definitions arent anywhere to be found. 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. Two other women he was involved with had also reported him to law enforcement). As an anonymous letter writer revealed, however, she was also the privately educated child of a radiologist, brought up in an affluent suburb. Fierceton finished her Whitfield education on a scholarship while living in foster homes. And so thats the low-income box. I have some of my own theories, but I want to hear yours. And Im glad that people are having the kinds of systemic discussions that are so key to all of this. RG: So how is a person who is filling out this application supposed to know what definition youre supposed to use? I think this is a conversation not necessarily for people who are still in question about what happened here. RG: And whats the difference between the U.S. and English system? 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. 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. RG: Or whatever our kind of contemporary version of it is. Uh, my lawyer. They didnt respond, though Mackenzies biological mother has denied the allegations of abuse. She and a separate witness said records of child-welfare agencies from years earlier are not easy to obtain. But it was definitely something I saw happening sort of this funneling of kids from the child welfare to criminal justice system. 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. 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. Mackenzie, for her part, was accepted to the University of Pennsylvania and, in her sophomore year, won a Rhodes Scholarship. And the staff member saying like: I understand, can you please give Mackenzie an estimate of how many questions are left? And that dynamic, I would say, [laughs] probably played a big part in all of this. When she was a teenager, she showed up bloodied and bruised at her elite private school. I mean, youd been taking loss after loss, despite having the facts on your side. I was like: Great. RG: who was, I believe now, the acting provost. But there was another definition that was also along those lines that I fit, that was, again, public on the website. 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. So they heard from her and immediately they call you into a meeting with the deputy provost at the time, Beth Winkelstein . Morrison then brought suit in circuit court to have the board's decision reviewed and reversed. 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. 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. She didnt know he was in the basement. 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. verbally. RG: And so when you applied for your masters in social worker or sociology? She did not remember what had caused it. [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. So, yes, an article came out in the local paper saying that she had been arrested. Cause I had assumed it was her. White, who had apparently drafted the offer, added a sentence to it requiring Fierceton to say she was agreeing to it "voluntarily and without pressure" after she learned that Fierceton was complaining to professors that she felt Penn was pressuring her to do this. 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. She ruined her moms career. Others echoed the criticism. The teacher recalled that she had black eyes and hair matted with blood, a description corroborated by a nurse who saw her on arrival after an ambulance brought her to nearby Mercy Hospital St. Louis. I have some of my own theories, but I want to hear yours. She was an independent student when she applied. [2][5] It did not disclose that it had done so until March. Professor Walter Licht, a Penn historian who runs the program, recalls her as the sort of student who would "[ask] a question that makes everyone stop and brings the conversation to a different pitch." Our producer is Zach Young. Right. 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. Thats all it takes to support the journalism you rely on. And I havent been on any of the Penn websites. And youre getting instruction from a university official that that's how you're supposed to fill it out, that's what the definition says online. And I think said something along the lines of there were things missing and it was distorted. 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. So normally the term FGLI, its just an umbrella term for both. 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. [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. 2020 College graduate Mackenzie Fierceton (Photo from Mackenzie Fierceton). 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