And The New Yorker article also alluded to a few things that you had gotten loose with in a couple of paragraphs. [5] She posted it before Fierceton's release from the hospital, and once free began calling Fierceton's friends and former teachers, telling them that Fierceton was having issues and had made it appear Morrison had beaten her. And back in high school, it was a similar thing. 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. But there was another definition that was also along those lines that I fit, that was, again, public on the website. 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: I want to talk about where you think that pushback came from. RG: So I could imagine why at some point youd be like, you know what, Im just not going to keep taking Ls here. 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. 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. Cause I had assumed it was her. As an anonymous letter writer revealed, however, she was also the privately educated child of a radiologist, brought up in an affluent suburb. There were definitely, Im sure. She didnt know any of the circumstances of his death. RG: And I just want to read this for people. They would not do so, however, if she agreed to withdraw from the scholarship, surrender the Latin honors that had accompanied her degree, and take a mandatory leave for "counseling and support" before receiving her master's. 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. Right. [2], Fierceton remained in the hospital, where DSS ordered her placed in protective custody. And what area of it are you going to explore with your Ph.D.? And after you talked to the school, how did you get to school the next morning? "Fuck thatI don't have [a family]" she said later. 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. The program's application asked "Are you the first generation in your family to attend college? Shes lying, shes a spoiled brat, this, that, and the other which looking back at the time I just felt absolutely horrible. Were close to done. Our producer is Zach Young. She kept a journal, writing that she was in so much pain from her bruised ribs that she could barely breathe. I mean, youd been taking loss after loss, despite having the facts on your side. "Was the problem that a child who was placed into foster care and had no contact with her biological mother wasn't actually a first-generation college student? 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. RG: And so where is your story now? 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. When asked what she might have done differently, Fierceton told the Chronicle that while she had at some points wished she had never applied to Penn, and later considered rephrasing some of the things she wrote on her essays and applications, "[w]here I've landed is that I have a right to write about my experiences as I experienced them. Its, in my opinion, because they get overlooked and the kids like me are kind of rendered invisible by the privileges of our biological families. We dont believe you. [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. [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. And that was the end of it, right? And you saw that playing out right away, right, when your biological mother was first arrested? She also alleged that Penn had on many occasions failed to follow its own disciplinary policies in its investigation of her.[16]. We need to stay on task. But teachers noticed that Fierceton often seemed physically uncomfortable in her mother's presence, and a close friend noted that she was often injured. [Laughs.]. And Im glad that people are having the kinds of systemic discussions that are so key to all of this. [Laughs.] Im part of a wrongful death lawsuit that was filed in August, 2020. You have a good education and youre clearly smart. But I got a bit of pressure from Penn to do that. So you use what you have, uh, which are the definitions that were already out there. [1]:95, Judge Kristine Allen Kerr ultimately held for Morrison. [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. It's from there the story unraveled. Our theme music was composed by Bart Warshaw. [2], To White, Morrison repeated her story that her daughter had fabricated the abuse allegations. And I think its true. 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. It, too, alleged that Fierceton was misrepresenting herself as having been poor and grown up entirely in foster care, with many photos of Fierceton as a little girl on the beach and riding horses, and other activities usually associated with affluence. 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. Teachers at Whitfield who had been supportive while she was there dropped out of touch. "[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. 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. How do I do that in a succinct way when theres a very short word count and youre trying to fit everyones experience in?And so I didnt really think about: Oh, I need to say: This foster sibling who was in the foster care system. What kind of a group is that? MF: So [laughs] I feel like I could go on for hours about that. So these are all things Ive learned [laughs] I learned after the fact. 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. [2], For her senior year, Whitfield gave Fierceton a full scholarship. A picture of her was posted at the nurse's station should she make the attempt. [2] She was also working two jobs, as a policy fellow with Philadelphia City Council and another interning in social work at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. My life is over, Im in the hospital, Im at rock bottom. Enough bruises? She also called herself a first-generation low-income student. But I also think it has something to do with the way that we understand poverty. Mackenzie Fierceton grew up poor, cycling through the rocky child welfare system. I think this is a conversation not necessarily for people who are still in question about what happened here. [i] Ruderman corroborated that later to The New Yorker, saying she was paraphrasing Fierceton's self-identification as FGLI. [23] In mid-April, Penn released Fierceton's master's degree. 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. Did they make that threat in writing or was that . But I just had a bad feeling and I started to try to find more information. Yeah. 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. 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. 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. 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. Cause Ive just wanted to go on with my life and, you know, live it. She is a student who found herself in a complex and easily-misunderstood situation: working towards her degree without support from family. 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. In between those placements, she slept at friends' houses for long periods. And Ive brought my mentor with me. And like: Why are you considered an independent student? And then again there was trouble getting him out of the basement. And I didnt get an answer. Did she lie? Yes, to my lawyer who communicated it to me. Thats not in question. And I was the one who uncovered my classmates death. Fierceton applied for the Rhodes Scholarship with assistance from Penn's Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. 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. And it became pretty clear to me that there had been a very similar delay in his care, but even worse dynamics. RG: as a kid. Or is that it separates two into one? Yeah. And that was the end of it, right? 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. Cops have accused the MTV star of stalking as well as violation of an order of protection. And so can you talk a little bit about your research? [2][e], A spokesman for the D.A. And how much did she challenge your medical condition after that beating? So therefore that doesnt fit their understanding of low-income, despite the fact that your mother was no longer your legal guardian, youre a ward of the state. So, to cut into the interview here real quick, I wanted to add that Mackenzie is referring to a letter sent to the Rhodes Trust in December 2020. In retrospect, I just honestly wish I had never written about those people, but it was kind of one of those things where I was like: OK, I need to make my point. And if you havent already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. Fierceton was released after four days. RG: so that people have the background there. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Mackenzie Fierceton claimed that Penn officials targeted the grad student for retaliation after she became a key witness in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the university. You know, I honestly dont know. But its interesting because most of the questions are about these applications and then the second half is when it turns to these questions of the abuse. [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. "[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. At first she went to a friend's home in Ohio and then returned to the Philadelphia area as May and graduation approached to live with a classmate's family. 24-year-old Mackenzie Fierceton won the Rhodes scholarship in November 2020, but a tip-off to the prestigious committee kicked off a deeper investigation into the student's background. And so I wanted to start with where things really started to unravel for you. And theyll openly talk about this. And we have our own specific grad school definitions. [7] The charges against Lovelace were dropped later for lack of evidence. 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." The mother hired a high-powered attorney and engaged in a local campaign to discredit Mackenzie. 2020 College graduate Mackenzie Fierceton (Photo from Mackenzie Fierceton). And its striking to see just the continuing to push of what happened. Thats not in question. Yeah, so Penn First for the whole FGLI community. Nor is she obligated to meet their expectations of her. Morrison told White in an email. Two weeks into the school year, she realized she had been wrong. 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. In a 25-minute conversation, she went into detail with Fierceton about her past and what she planned to do with her scholarship. 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. 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. And did they say anything along those lines? So Im not sure how much could have been missing. [19] The New York Post wrote that "[t]he case exposes the murky underbelly of elite schools like Penn. I have some of my own theories, but I want to hear yours. [2], Two months later the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. "They are the people that support you, look out for you, & love you unconditionally. "While it is possible that [she] was the cause of the alleged injuries," she wrote a month afterward, "the court cannot make that finding by a preponderance of the evidence based on the evidence presented." 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. So Rachel had it and Penn disputed it. Penn also noted that her name change had the effect, whether she had intended it or not, of making her background harder to research. 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. 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. But Mackenzie Fierceton is not a liar. Because Im not under any illusion that Im the typical foster kid. 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. 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. The New Yorker reported that Fierceton reported this to Penn's campus police, fearing that her mother had somehow found out where she was living. But part of it is funding decisions. Mackenzie Fierceton didn't come until much later, but with good reason. 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 . And to me, I'm like I am a household of one, so I am the only person in my family. Penn officials, of course, have said the interview was appropriate. The show was mixed by William Stanton. 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. And we do know for sure that she was in touch with the university. She had bruises all over her body in different stages of healing an obvious sign of child abuse., No, I found it before. I think they do have a richer experience if they have more diversity around them, but that is more the point. What happened the night before? 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 entered foster care only at the age of 17, after making a complaint of abuse against Dr.. 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. Mhmm. [2], Almost three months later, The New Yorker ran a longer article about Fierceton, which had taken the magazine eight months to report and fact-check. I do think that it is a huge defense mechanism that people deploy. And so can you talk a little bit about your research? 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. 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 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. 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. And I decided to do it cause I felt like I had nothing to lose and I ended up making gratitude lists every day for years and it really was a very healing experience for me. Fierceton's mother's supporters have maintained that her daughter was an emotionally manipulative girl who injured herself and fabricated other aspects of the abuse in order to become a more appealing candidate for admission to an Ivy League college such as the University of Pennsylvania. RG: And it has, has she stuck by that? And if you havent already, please subscribe to the show so you can hear it every week. 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