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. And then instantly people started picking her story apart. RG: Did they make that threat in writing or was that . And she had gone to a private school growing up. So they didnt ask about that in this meeting. RG: And The New Yorker article also alluded to a few things that you had gotten loose with in a couple of paragraphs. You know, in my personal experience, there were not very many kids who came from a background like me. And Im glad that people are having the kinds of systemic discussions that are so key to all of this. I took photos of the building and sent it to them, and I was connecting them with different people who were in my class, who were in his class. In the transcript, I wrote it was really just focused on: What happened the night you went into foster care? Right. What happened the night before? RG: Anything in particular jump out at you after having read back over that transcript? You have a good education and youre clearly smart. [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. She feared that her mother had inflicted the injuries, perhaps out of jealousy that Lovelace was attracted to her, even as it seemed to Fierceton that Morrison was "offering [her] up to him on a silver platter". What kind of a group is that? The teen said she was sent to. I think [its] called Penn First, I believe, and it seems like you socially spent a lot of time with them? 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. Just like some basic questions [laughs] and then a lot of detailed questions about my application. The nurse also reported bruises all over Fierceton's body, in different stages of healing, considered an indicator of possible physical abuse. 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. Theres people who span all different kinds of experiences. Within days of the article being published, the universitys general counsel was in touch with Mackenzies mother. And in the U.S., there is much more pressure to pull kids out of homes, right? And we do know for sure that she was in touch with the university. Penn student and Rhodes Scholarship recipient Mackenzie Fierceton filed a lawsuit against the University following its investigation into allegations that questioned her status as a first-generation, low-income student and survivor of abuse.. And that was the end of it, right? MF: And its mentioned briefly. 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. I was a teenager and I was in the hospital and I didnt have any perspective. 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. Yeah. [2], Local police were called. [Laughs.]. And then The New Yorker adds in parentheses that a Penn spokesperson says: Yeah, well, thats not the definition that we use. And I ended up reading the comments, and the comments were just horrendous. 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. So to me it was pretty clear that it likely came from them. They had done their own investigation again, quotes on investigation and then I had submitted over a hundred pages of documents to them. And: Did you report what was going on to your school? 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. RG: in America. 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. And where are you at school? [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. "[b] She considered running away but had a distant relationship with her father, and nowhere else she believed she could go. MF: Yeah. 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. He died after a medical emergency in a basement of UPenn's Caster Building in 2018. And I think said something along the lines of there were things missing and it was distorted. So you use what you have, uh, which are the definitions that were already out there. Anything in particular jump out at you after having read back over that transcript? At the end of the march they were addressed by Fierceton and other FGLI students. Mackenzie Fierceton (born Mackenzie Terrell on August 9, 1997; later Mackenzie Morrison, [1] : 63-64, 86 ) is an American activist and graduate student currently studying at Oxford University. Right. 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. Thank you so much for having me. [Laughs.] Deconstructed[emailprotected]theintercept.com, Photo illustration: Soohee Cho for The Intercept; Getty Images, AP, This weeks guest on Deconstructed is Mackenzie Fierceton, who was the subject of, The Philadelphia Inquirer erroneously wrote that she had grown up poor. 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. Which as Im sure youve learned since is a complete and fundamental misunderstanding of poverty . But I just had a bad feeling and I started to try to find more information. She ruined her moms career. MF: No, I found it before. Enough bruises? Teachers and parents at Whitfield had donated new clothing and school supplies for her. So, yes. Betsy Reed is The Intercepts editor in chief. RG: Talk just a little bit about that case . [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 you said, theres also the cultural stereotype of like Orphan Annie and Oliver Twist of what these kinds of kids are supposed to look like that starts so early on in, and deep in the culture or media that we encounter that I think really ingrains that into people. Well, Mackenzie, thank you so much for joining me and sharing your story. I think this is a conversation not necessarily for people who are still in question about what happened here. 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. It recommended the scholarship be rescinded. Uh, my lawyer. And what was the first-generation community like on campus? And there was also the added threat that they would report me to the federal government for wire fraud if I didnt, again, withdraw from the Rhodes and sign this NDA. She did not remember what had caused it. MF: verbally. She entered foster care only at the age of 17, after making a complaint of abuse against Dr. Morrison a complaint that a court later found not to be credible. RG: And because you were not just low-income, actually no income, other than the jobs that you were working nobody has complained about the low-income one, right? [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. 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. OSC referred the recommendation to an SP2 panel to make a final determination; she has subsequently appealed the decision. And so when you applied for your masters in social worker or sociology? 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. At first she explained Fierceton's injuries as either having been caused by an intruder or somehow self-inflicted, then said her daughter had fallen downstairs while she was trying to help her get some chewing gum out of her hair. There were definitely, Im sure. And did you find this after The New Yorker article was published? 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. [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. MF: Yeah. And you saw that playing out right away, right, when your biological mother was first arrested? 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 I was actually really nervous about doing any press for this reason. [2], Brandt noted that Morrison never asked about, or expressed concern for, her daughter's well-being. And I dont remember exactly what their statement was, but they disputed it. Although she had not attended an orientation session for first-generation/low-income (FGLI) students she had been invited to, on campus she began attending meetings and gatherings of Penn First, an FGLI student group founded the preceding year to pressure Penn to better accommodate their needs, such as not closing dormitories and cafeterias over breaks since many FGLI students could not, for various reasons, return home during those periods. 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. 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. 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 kind of reporting we do is essential to democracy, but it is not easy, cheap, or profitable. And if you havent already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. Fellow students, their parents and Whitfield faculty also noticed signs which led them to suspect abuse. Rather than it being for the purpose of benefiting the students themselves. And I kind of felt like things were resolved until the next week when there was more [laughs] more downhill event. Penn officials, of course, have said the interview was appropriate. ", Morrison said. At first there was actually, there was contention. And still, it was just like: Nope. 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 that people have the background there. MF: Yes, definitely. 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. And the chain of events that happened leading into foster care? RG: Instead, I want to talk more about what this says about the system, that something so seemingly irrational could be produced by this system, and actually could be predicted to be produced by this system in some ways. 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. RG: And all of us, no matter what our situation, are not completely safe from it. Within days of the article being published, the universitys general counsel was in touch with Mackenzies mother. 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. [2], Shortly after the Rhodes investigation began, Rafaelle was informed that Penn was proposing to revoke Fierceton's bachelors on the grounds of her apparent self-misrepresentation. And so they had to see some benefit to them in doing this. [3], By the end of the interview Fierceton was crying. She found Fierceton's diary at the house and read it, then interviewed teachers and administrators at Whitfield, learning of Morrison's insulting texts to Fierceton. Fierceton grew up in a wealthy community and attended an elite private school in a St. Louis suburb. 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. 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. And that dynamic, I would say, [laughs] probably played a big part in all of this. 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. You know, I believe the first people who said that was the Rhodes Trust. If you havent read the story yet, I highly recommend pausing this, and giving it a read first, because I try not to go over too much of the same territory in my interview with her. I wasnt there for all of this, but after I went through all these interviews, that was my conclusion. [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 I ended up reading the comments, and the comments were just horrendous. [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. That they would forward charges to the federal government of wire fraud. 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. She didnt know any of the circumstances of his death. And then throughout the now a year and a half process [laughs] of different sort of invented processes that happened, eventually the university was like: OK, I guess shes low-income. ")[3], The OSC report also concluded that nothing in her academic record warranted the revocation of either degree. 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? Fierceton clarified the details in question and Ruderman said she understood better. She is a student who found herself in a complex and easily-misunderstood situation: working towards her degree without support from family. Or is this something thats been overlooked? Brandt, the Chesterfield police detective who had originally investigated the case, said later that the prosecutor never explained to her what that new evidence was. In addition to reiterating many of the themes of comments made by her and her supporters in the previous articles, including criticism of the Rhodes and Penn investigations (the former of which Grim noted she was putting air quotes around when she mentioned it), she expressed a belief that her story had triggered a defensive anxiety in women like Finkelstein and White:[4]. At Norton's request, a fellow political science colleague, Rogers Smith, who while at Yale had chaired that university's undergraduate disciplinary committee, agreed to represent Fierceton during what he called "a very unusual process". [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. University of Pennsylvania student Mackenzie Fierceton had her Rhodes Scholarship revoked and her master's degree withheld after allegations surfaced that she was lying about her. So first-generation and/or low-income, again, is the acronym. I think this is a conversation not necessarily for people who are still in question about what happened here. 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. 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. [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. RG: And so youre becoming rather inconvenient to the university at that point , RG: I would assume, which plays into the way that universities and elite structures think of diversity, I think. You didnt grow up in crumbling projects your entire life. She told Brandt it was her mother, and asked her to keep Morrison from coming to her room. MF: You know, I honestly dont know. 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. And they released this quote-unquote report in April of 2021 with their findings. as a kid. MF: She, to my knowledge, has stuck by that. 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. 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. That is when I would trace it back to. 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. But part of it is funding decisions. Mackenzie, for her part, was accepted to the University of Pennsylvania and, in her sophomore year, won a Rhodes Scholarship. Or is that it separates two into one? So those questions really came later. MF: You know, in my personal experience, there were not very many kids who came from a background like me. "[I]t was probably from someone in my biological family," she told The Intercept, "because it had photos of me; it had very specific information that very few people would haveand I don't think many people would have random childhood photos of me. 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. Fierceton considered dropping out, but "if I truly can't do this, where am I supposed to return to? The court granted Morrison a protection order against her former husband; Fierceton had no relationship with him from that time onward. 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. "Fuck thatI don't have [a family]" she said later. 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. The father's message was forwarded to Penn's general counsel, Wendy White, who got in touch with Morrison. Her mother was arrested and charged with abuse, and Mackenzie went into foster care. 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. And then I remembered that my teacher had told me to write a gratitude list. 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