Thank you so much for having me. Mackenzie Fierceton, 23, originally from St. Louis, Missouri, possesses a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and planned to utilize the scholarship to pursue a Ph.D. in social . It was literally just like: She was arrested and her daughter is hospitalized. She had had a fairly upper middle class life yet was working at multiple fast food restaurants and barely getting by. So Im not sure how much could have been missing. Who will spend some significant amount of time in poverty. [2], At the end of 2013, in the middle of her sophomore year, Fierceton was admitted to St. Luke's, where her mother worked, with a head injury. 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. And I think said something along the lines of there were things missing and it was distorted. 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. And Im curious where you would pinpoint it, but I would guess that its The Philadelphia Inquirer story that started with an incorrect lead that said: Mackenzie Fierston grew up poor, something very close to that? There were definitely, Im sure. And we have our own specific grad school definitions. And we have this idea of what a person looks like who commits a crime or who gets arrested for child abuse. MF: No, I found it before. In addition it offered details of what its own investigation had concluded about Fierceton's childhood and adolescence that led OSC to believe it was likely that she had exaggerated or fabricated outright her claims about her mother. And what happened after that? RG: So how is a person who is filling out this application supposed to know what definition youre supposed to use? RG: I want to talk about where you think that pushback came from. But while OSC allowed that it may not have been Fierceton's explicit intent to deceive, she had still done so, particularly when checking "yes" on the question on her SP2 application as to whether she was the first in her family to attend college (Fierceton stands by her reliance on Penn's definitions of FGLI on the Penn Plus website and the applicable federal laws; the university says that question is "composed of ordinary words with everyday meanings, and it makes no reference to any term or definition appearing in any other publication. 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. What was the response from the readers of the paper? And I think I just share that because I think its a powerful example of if that is as far as theyre going to go when theres literal documentation from child me and that accusing me of that being faked, I really am like: I dont know, short of a video montage of instances of abuse from 6 to 16, what would convince them. A picture of her was posted at the nurse's station should she make the attempt. And you experienced that yourself, right? So I could imagine why at some point youd be like, you know what, Im just not going to keep taking Ls here. Asked by the school's wellness director (who later told police she had seen insulting texts from Morrison on Fierceton's phone) about the reasons for the injuries, Fierceton said that she was "clumsy" but did not offer any details. 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.. They didnt respond, though Mackenzies biological mother has denied the allegations of abuse. And they released this quote-unquote report in April of 2021 with their findings. So Im not sure how much could have been missing. It's from there the story unraveled. But those definitions arent anywhere to be found. Fierceton was released after four days. And she had gone to a private school growing up. As an anonymous letter writer revealed, however, she was also the privately educated child of a radiologist, brought up in an affluent suburb. Within days of the article being published, the universitys general counsel was in touch with Mackenzies mother. Am I right about that? But I got a bit of pressure from Penn to do that. And so I was like, of course, Im going to respond again. Or is that it separates two into one? "She was a foster child, but not for long enough. [2], During her high school years, Fierceton has alleged that her mother subjected her to emotional and physical abuse, the latter enough on more than one occasion to require hospitalization. It was: Shes a spoiled little brat. 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. What foster family were you with in X,Y, Z year? Penn, by questioning so much of Fierceton's story, was making itself "complicit in a long campaign of continuing abuse", she added. [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. There were three instances of attempted contact from her family or foster family. Her history teacher described the incident this way: She showed up at my classroom door with a bloodied and battered face and then fainted., Mackenzie was hospitalized. MF: 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. 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. MF: Yeah, so Penn First for the whole FGLI community. 's office explained the decision to drop the charges against Morrison as based on new evidence that had emerged. [7] The charges against Lovelace were dropped later for lack of evidence. Our concern is instead with the conduct of our. Yeah. 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. "[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. Like questioning: How much blood? 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]. [3], Through her attorney, Morrison gave a statement, her only one so far, on the case: "Mackenzie is deeply loved by her mom and family. [26] In the second, he wrote, "[y]ou could also conclude from Mackenzie Fierceton's story that there is no actual empathy within elite institutions unless you perfectly fit into the trauma hierarchy they have created, which preferences the types of overcoming-adversity stories they can place in a brochure. (Photo from Mackenzie Fierceton) Penn student Mackenzie Fierceton was selected as one of 32 American recipients of the 2021 Rhodes Scholarship, becoming Penn's 31st Rhodes scholar since the scholarship's inception in 1902.. Fierceton, a 2020 College graduate, is currently working on her . Mackenzie Fierceton is the child of a doctor who attended a private prep school in a wealthy suburb. And the staff member saying like: I understand, can you please give Mackenzie an estimate of how many questions are left? So Rachel had it and Penn disputed it. The nurse also reported bruises all over Fierceton's body, in different stages of healing, considered an indicator of possible physical abuse. Mackenzies critics even began nitpicking how much blood was in her hair while she was in the intensive care unit. Im part of a wrongful death lawsuit that was filed in August, 2020. Smith said he believed the university had decided before it began investigating that Fierceton's abuse allegations were false and that she had fabricated them with the goal of finding an easier way into Penn or another elite school. Since we began the Reshuffled journey, any mention of foster care grabs my attention, the same with Tracy. 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. 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. Yeah. So that was, I think later on that specific line came into question. Fierceton responded that that showed the university's "vulnerability and desperation". And I turned over all this information to his widow. And so the fact that shes continued pursuing you to me kind of demonstrates the entire case. And what area of it are you going to explore with your Ph.D.? And please go and leave us a rating or a review it helps people find the show. I want to talk about where you think that pushback came from. Because that was one of the ones that really blew my mind. Mhmm. MF: verbally. . And when will you have finished up your Ph.D.? Thats the reality of it, but we dont want to think of it that way. Betsy Reed is The Intercepts editor in chief. 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. At Oxford University, Mackenzie Fierceton will conduct research on the "foster care-to-prison" pipeline. Now Im sobbing, Im hyperventilating, and the staff member interrupted and said: Can we have an estimate of how much time is left? And thats an unfortunate reality so many survivors experience, not having a lot of documentation. And we do know for sure that she was in touch with the university. [2], Fierceton moved into the first of several foster homes, with one other foster sibling and two biological children of the foster parents. MF: And that is, I felt very defeated too. So it makes some sense that they were very similar questions. Fierceton applied for the Rhodes Scholarship with assistance from Penn's Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. And so can you talk a little bit about your research? MF: So thats the background of him. And the chain of events that happened leading into foster care? Or do you think that the wheels were already in motion before that? ", 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. [2] Her father, Billy Terrell,[1] had been an actor in soap operas. And it started with, this paragraph-and-a-half of waking up in the hospital and then, like you said, looking at my face, not recognizing myself, and kind of describing what I felt like and what the room looked like. And if you havent already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. That is when I would trace it back to. [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. Nothing I have is persuasive to these people. The show was mixed by William Stanton. Teachers at Whitfield who had been supportive while she was there dropped out of touch. Because thats not how we understand poverty. So that was what that specific sentence in The New Yorker was referencing is this kind of condensing this group of people and to one sentence. 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 then she hired a law firm and eventually they were doing their own investigation for several months. 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. You didnt grow up in crumbling projects your entire life. Whereas a social worker comes into a poor home and looks around and sees just the normal poverty that our system has foisted on people and says: Oh, well, clearly this is somebody that needs to be stripped out of here. "They are the people that support you, look out for you, & love you unconditionally. [2], Morrison retained William Margulis, a former member of Whitfield's board who had sent four of his children there, including one of her daughter's classmates, as her attorney. 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], DSS kept Morrison on its child-abuser registry, as it still believed the allegations to be founded, and a petition to its Child Abuse and Neglect Review Board to have her removed was denied. And then the focus shifted to the second box. Like, those two things dont fit together. So, I myself, had a seizure in the basement of my grad school in January, 2020, and it took over an hour to get me out of the basement because they couldnt fit a stretcher or a backboard down the stairs or the elevator. Then, the first-generation box. She had seen no signs of abuse in the relationship and considered Fierceton to be the dominant personality in it. Mackenzie Fierceton was championed as a former foster youth who had overcome an abusive childhood and won a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. students, defines first generation broadly, including students who have a strained or limited relationship with a parent who has graduated from college. How much research has been done on the foster-care-to-prison-pipeline? But the outline of the story is this: Mackenzie was raised in a wealthy St. Louis suburb by a single mother who was repeatedly abusive, according to two state agencies. MF: Its hard to say. So thats the background of him. Because processes become Kafkaesque very quickly. Mackenzie Fierceton: Yeah. Its a very under-researched field. 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. Because Im not under any illusion that Im the typical foster kid. RG: That they would forward charges to the federal government of wire fraud. 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. Its practically half of Americans, or more. 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. RG: or in graduate school. And youre getting instruction from a university official that thats how youre supposed to fill it out, thats what the definition says online. Deconstructed is a production of First Look Media and The Intercept. Our theme music was composed by Bart Warshaw. Penn's report notes that Fierceton disputes this account. And I kind of felt like things were resolved until the next week when there was more [laughs] more downhill event. That they would forward charges to the federal government of wire fraud. That is when I would trace it back to. In her reading, Tracy came across an article that congratulated Mackenzie Fierceton, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, on being named a Rhodes Scholar. She helped SP2 assistant professor Toorjo Ghose draft and promote a petition in support of Police Free Penn, an activist group calling on the university to cut its ties with the Philadelphia Police Department over its poor relations with the largely black and Latin residents of the West Philadelphia neighborhoods around the university's campus, and rethink its own police department, the largest private one in the state. And you saw that playing out right away, right, when your biological mother was first arrested? Theres no cell phone reception in the basement. 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. Attached were copies of the Missouri court orders expunging Morrison's arrest and removing her name from the DSS registry. Just like some basic questions [laughs] and then a lot of detailed questions about my application. In November 2020, Mackenzie Fierceton was one of just 32 students to be awarded the Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford. Which as Im sure youve learned since is a complete and fundamental misunderstanding of poverty . Like there is more attention to systemic poverty and trying to keep children in their homes to begin with, I would say, which is important, because if you can keep kids in their homes, then theyre not in the system and facing that foster-to-prison pipeline. 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. RG: Mhmm. 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. RG: Right. You have a good education and youre clearly smart. The Inquirer story came out in November 2020. Fierceton joins Ryan Grim to discuss the saga of her battle with UPenn and why the Ivy Leagueinstitution seems to have so much trouble recognizing the complexity of poverty in America. 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. You have a good education and youre clearly smart. [H]onestly, first-generation is never something I've really identified with fully. "Fuck thatI don't have [a family]" she said later. 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. Uh, my lawyer. [4] It took nearly an hour, during which Fierceton seized intermittently and never completely regained consciousness, for her to be taken to the hospital. I had never heard of FGLI, but these labels resonated with a story I was still trying to process. RG: Right. [2], Brandt interviewed Morrison, who described herself and her daughter as "two peas in a pod". Mackenzie is the soap's first transgender character, added to the series after Stone wrote to executive producer Jason Herbison to pitch the character. 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? And it started with, this paragraph-and-a-half of waking up in the hospital and then, like you said, looking at my face, not recognizing myself, and kind of describing what I felt like and what the room looked like. Youre engaged in a lawsuit with Penn. [2], Local police were called. I think there were almost 30 of those letters again, very similar to who had given statements in the past to corroborate my abuse as well as leaders in the FGLI community saying yes, we started this community. 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