MF: So thats the background of him. [Laughs.] 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], Fierceton remained in the hospital, where DSS ordered her placed in protective custody. 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. Its a very different lifestyle. 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. RG: Thats been my understanding of it. "Without her trauma, she didnt matter", wrote a commentator in the Tulane Hullabaloo. "[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 turned over all this information to his widow. And that dynamic, I would say, [laughs] probably played a big part in all of this. It recommended the scholarship be rescinded. 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. 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 . She and a separate witness said records of child-welfare agencies from years earlier are not easy to obtain. And that dynamic, I would say, [laughs] probably played a big part in all of this. And I ultimately didnt end up responding because I got a serious threats from Penn that if I didnt withdraw that they were going to come after my undergrad degree, and launch proceedings to revoke my undergrad degree, and never give me my M.S.W which I was supposed to graduate with in May 2021, I have not yet received that diploma if I didnt withdraw from the Rhodes and sign an NDA. Like you said, I was called into a meeting. 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. Aviv tells the story of Mackenzie Fierceton, a former student at the University of Pennsylvania. [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. And its striking to see just the continuing to push of what happened. [f] Fierceton felt no ambivalence about her answer. And you experienced that yourself, right? Its practically half of Americans, or more. Again, this is obviously secondhand, because I was unconscious. And so I was like, of course, Im going to respond again. But it was definitely something I saw happening sort of this funneling of kids from the child welfare to criminal justice system. 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. And I kind of felt like things were resolved until the next week when there was more [laughs] more downhill event. Cause Ive just wanted to go on with my life and, you know, live it. Then the University of Pennsylvania accused her of. 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. [2], Two weeks after the New Yorker article was published, Fierceton gave an interview to The Intercept's Ryan Grim for an installment of the Deconstructed podcast. Since we began the Reshuffled journey, any mention of foster care grabs my attention, the same with Tracy. [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. MF: Yeah. And I think its striking to read that back and just see how clearly distressed and distraught I was in continuing to push on that series of questions about a really traumatic experience. 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. Now Im sobbing, Im hyperventilating, and the staff member interrupted and said: Can we have an estimate of how much time is left? Were close to done. 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. And so I wanted to start with where things really started to unravel for you. Fierceton was released after four days. What about Rhodes? And I dont remember exactly what their statement was, but they disputed it. It was more, I think, in the times after and the months after where I ended up like giving different medical records and all of these things to corroborate my account, but there were a few questions that were very specific to what had happened. 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 she ended up responding right away, and asked to get on a phone call. And if those things are true, and youre also struggling in poverty, then something is deeply wrong with the system. 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. ", "Inside Mackenzie Fierceton's ongoing legal battle with the University", "Mackenzie Fierceton Sets the Record Straight on Losing a Rhodes Scholarship Over Accusations of 'Dishonesty', "Penn community rallies in support of former Rhodes Scholar Mackenzie Fierceton", "Universities must stop fetishizing trauma", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mackenzie_Fierceton&oldid=1138496124, controversy over representation of childhood and abuse, This page was last edited on 10 February 2023, at 00:35. But it was definitely something I saw happening sort of this funneling of kids from the child welfare to criminal justice system. But Mackenzie Fierceton is not a liar. 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. 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. The notation in her transcript remains. So normally the term FGLI, its just an umbrella term for both. But that was definitely a driving force for why I decided, ultimately, to withdraw because I felt like: OK, federal prison is no joke. Fierceton told the story that, according to her diary, her mother had told her to tellthat she had tripped while playing with the family dogs and bruised herself on the corner of a nearby table. Just like some basic questions [laughs] and then a lot of detailed questions about my application. After the trial ended with Morrison prevailing and the agency ordered to remove her name from the child-abuse registry, Fierceton resolved to change her last name. [4] It took nearly an hour, during which Fierceton seized intermittently and never completely regained consciousness, for her to be taken to the hospital. And it was a very similar situation where it took everyone a long time to get to the building. Enough bruises? And I ended up reading the comments, and the comments were just horrendous. And then the other question was: Are you the first in your family to attend college? But she says she occasionally received packages at her dorm room containing objects she suspected had come from her mother, such as a bracelet with an inscription about finding the truth, or others close to her, such as a pair of sneakers, which she believed Lovelace, who had sometimes helped her stretch before workouts, had sent. he asked in the first. 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. And so, Mackenzie, you and I were just talking offline. Her mother was a doctor and Fierceton attended a prep school, but she was. [2], Fierceton was accepted at the University of Pennsylvania (commonly known as Penn) on a full scholarship, arranged through QuestBridge. And that was the end of it, right? And after you talked to the school, how did you get to school the next morning? And like: Why are you considered an independent student? "Once you do something that the University sees as undermining its quest for power and prestige, it will not think twice about discarding you, humiliating you, and retaliating against you, which is exactly what they did" said one SP2 student in support of Fierceton. And like you said, like, yes, obviously I was looking in a mirror, and I knew I was looking in a mirror. And again, people, including Penn administrators, have the perception of I think the stereotype and my friend Anea Moore, whos a Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Penn who founded Penn first or co-founded it had a really great quote in The New Yorker about we arent all, quote-unquote something along the lines of like impoverished, inner city kids who go to crumbling public schools as the wider media portrays us to be. 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 . So you use what you have, uh, which are the definitions that were already out there. There were definitely, Im sure. [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. 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. "[1]:119, Dismissal of mother's charges and expurgation of records, Role in wrongful death suit against university, In its response to Fierceton's suit, Penn quotes Fierceton as telling police as soon as they entered her hospital room after her later injury about her diary and that it would tell them everything they would need to know. 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. And then very quickly turn to very specific questions about different instances of abuse. I had no idea what she already knew. This made Fierceton feel as if she were being watched for anything she did that could be used against the state's case by her mother. 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." Like some students do have a story, more like me where they had some kind of separation from their family; other students their parents were doctors or lawyers or Ph.D. students in other countries, but then they came here and their degrees no longer, essentially, counted or people who are just first-generation and not necessarily low-income or people who are low-income, but not first-generation. MF: And its mentioned briefly. Fierceton was living off-campus by then, but she and her roommates decided to leave their apartment. So I started while I was an undergrad and was taking classes at the same time. 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. 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. It called attention to claims, such as the one in her application essay, that by the time she was six she "knew every police officer in my county by their first name", a claim Fierceton herself admitted was untrue and born of her fear of her biological family when she wrote it. So they didnt ask about that in this meeting. Cause then you cant think that it could be you. But now looking back and rereading that article in the last year and seeing that it virtually had no information. 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. That night at home, Morrison, who had apparently learned of the report, confronted her daughter about it. [7] The charges against Lovelace were dropped later for lack of evidence. RG: Right. She has a bachelor's degree in political science from Penn and was working on a master's in social work. Mackenzie Fierceton grew up poor, cycling through the rocky child welfare system. It didnt, though, to the University of Pennsylvania. So, yes, an article came out in the local paper saying that she had been arrested. 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! 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? [2] Winkelstein, who has a Ph.D. in bioengineering and has studied injuries,[3] then proceeded to interrogate Fierceton at length about her abuse and hospitalization, in a manner that led Fierceton to believe that not only did Winkelstein doubt her story but had spoken with Morrison. 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. According to Fierceton, her mother pushed her down the stairs and then beat her extensively at the bottom. Right. And one of the main things they pointed to was that she had gone to this private school . As a result she withdrew from the Rhodes Scholarship; a sympathetic Penn faculty member has paid her Oxford tuition in its stead.[2]. So, yes, an article came out in the local paper saying that she had been arrested. And then again there was trouble getting him out of the basement. DSS had originally planned to place Fierceton with one of her mother's sisters but put her in foster care after Whitfield's principal warned the agency that Fierceton would not be safe with them. And its funny, cause it just made me so frustrated and I actually went back and read it. And thats again, like not because there isnt abuse or neglect going on in families that looked like mine, or biological families that looked like mine. Mackenzie is currently suing the university. MF: Yeah. How much research has been done on the foster-care-to-prison-pipeline? [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 identify with the FGLI umbrella term and definitely being a low-income student, but I've never really called myself a standalone first-generation. In a 25-minute conversation, she went into detail with Fierceton about her past and what she planned to do with her scholarship. So not that I think at all the population of kids who are in foster care is representative of what abuse or neglect and what households they occur or dont occur in. [1]:95, Judge Kristine Allen Kerr ultimately held for Morrison. I cant remember if it was in the Rhodes essay or in another essay that, in hindsight, you wouldve tightened up. At first there was actually, there was contention. In her reading, Tracy came across an article that congratulated Mackenzie Fierceton, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, on being named a Rhodes Scholar. 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 they released this quote-unquote report in April of 2021 with their findings. And so they had to see some benefit to them in doing this. Yes. But it was just kind of this rapid fire of: If we look at your medical records, are we going to see you had broken ribs and severe facial injuries? Thats the reality of it, but we dont want to think of it that way. RG: Mhmm. But I guess I cant say for sure. RG: Interesting. MF: Its hard to say. 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 has become emboldened over time, and has been successful with her evolving tale for 6 yrs. RG: And so where is your story now? Whereas white parents, a lot of times, it is much harder the bar is much higher to remove them from their homes because their whiteness or possibly class privilege or whatever identities that they have that might not fit a social worker or judges or whoevers involved perception of whose kids should be in the foster system. This definition resembles the one used in the federal Higher Education Act, which says that first-generation status depends on the education level of a parent whom a student regularly resided with and received support from.. And I asked in the email exchange: Is this about the anonymous email? RG: Right. 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. And Im Ryan Grim, D.C. bureau chief of The Intercept. It didnt have any facts of the case. 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. RG: who was, I believe now, the acting provost. So first-generation and/or low-income, again, is the acronym. Or whatever our kind of contemporary version of it is. [2] Katie Couric had Fierceton as a guest on her podcast a week later. In between those placements, she slept at friends' houses for long periods. 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