She didnt know any of the circumstances of his death. MF: No, I found it before. And I was the one who uncovered my classmates death. [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?" 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. She had begun to remember more about the incident, and while still not certain how it had happened recalled that before it she and her mother had been fighting about Lovelace. 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. It was: Shes a spoiled little brat. So they heard from her and immediately they call you into a meeting with the deputy provost at the time, Beth Winkelstein . To me, it seems like any reader of the English language would read that in a literary sense , of its self-exploration, self-doubt, trauma. 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. Fierceton applied for the Rhodes Scholarship with assistance from Penn's Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. [Laughs.] [2], In December 2021 Fierceton retained another lawyer pro bono and filed her own suit against Penn, alleging that the university's investigations into her history and how she had represented herself was a "sham", undertaken with the intent of forcing her to withdraw from the Rhodes Scholarship and damaging her credibility as a witness in the Driver suit, constituting tortious interference with a business relationship and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. So it makes some sense that they were very similar questions. Fierceton is the 31st Penn student to be chosen as a Rhodes Scholar since the distinguished program's start in 1902. His master's level university, Ivy College Pennsylvania, also failed to grant him the acquired master's degree . She retained two lawyers to represent her pro bono; they talked to Morrison themselves, who told them she still loved her daughter and wanted her to come home. She was diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome and released after three weeks. She definitely asked some questions about it. And still, it was just like: Nope. [3] The change in her living situation greatly complicated her college plans as she had no financial resources of her own. 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. 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. For all the readers could have known, there could have been a videotape of it happening. RG: That they would forward charges to the federal government of wire fraud. Are we going to see these injuries? Because thats not how we understand poverty. Who would hold party elites accountable to the values they proclaim to have? [24], In a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian, the university said the New Yorker article "did not accurately reflect" the university's investigation of the issues raised by the Rhodes Trust. There was also the part of me that was terrified. [f] Fierceton felt no ambivalence about her answer. First of all, thats one box? She applied to a program at Penn's School of Social Policy and Practice (commonly referred to at Penn as SP2) that would allow her to begin graduate studies while still an undergraduate, so she could graduate with a master's degree in the field a year after completing her undergraduate degree. So they heard from her and immediately they call you into a meeting with the deputy provost at the time, Beth Winkelstein . In between those placements, she slept at friends' houses for long periods. And it was also the community was kind of divided. Fine. "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? 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. Like, those two things dont fit together. I think [its] called Penn First, I believe, and it seems like you socially spent a lot of time with them? To me, it seems like any reader of the English language would read that in a literary sense , RG: of its self-exploration, self-doubt, trauma. Because Im not under any illusion that Im the typical foster kid. But I agreed to come into this Zoom meeting and this was the last day of November 2020. She had had a fairly upper middle class life yet was working at multiple fast food restaurants and barely getting by. 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. 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. So normally the term FGLI, its just an umbrella term for both. I didnt encounter many of them in the two years that I was living in foster families. "[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. In November 2020, Mackenzie Fierceton was one of just 32 students to be awarded the Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford. If youd like to support our work, go to theintercept.com/give your donation, no matter what the amount, makes a real difference. The mother of a friend of Fierceton's recalls that when she told Morrison on the phone that she "was not interested" in hearing what Morrison had to say, she got angry and confrontational. What about Rhodes? 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. The nurse also reported bruises all over Fierceton's body, in different stages of healing, considered an indicator of possible physical abuse. RG: Right. And theyll openly talk about this. 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. Yes. 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? [1] It appended both the Rhodes report and OSC's as exhibits. And my biological family did not fit those stereotypes, and I think that was really hard for people to process. I think this is a conversation not necessarily for people who are still in question about what happened here. On Saturday afternoon, Fierceton said she found herself in a Zoom meeting for several hours with 10 other finalists from this region. Or is that it separates two into one? And did they say anything along those lines? Mackenzies critics even began nitpicking how much blood was in her hair while she was in the intensive care unit. Last edited on 10 February 2023, at 00:35, Learn how and when to remove this template message, the state's Department of Social Services, tortious interference with a business relationship, negligent infliction of emotional distress, "Verified Answer and New Matter to Plaintiff's Complaint", "How an Ivy League School Turned Against a Student", "Deconstructed: Mackenzie Fierceton on Her Battle With UPenn", "Ex Alderman Newsletter 168 And Chesterfield 113", "St. Luke's physician charged with felony child abuse", "Abuse charges against former St. Luke's physician are dropped", "Henry Lovelace, owner of Wild Horse Fitness Passes Away", "Former St. Louis woman who spent time in foster care named Rhodes Scholar", "Thousands petition U. to cut ties with Philly PD, reform militarized campus 'police state', "Penn student who aged out of foster care wins prestigious Rhodes Scholarship", "Following public outcry, Penn lifts hold on former Rhodes Scholar Mackenzie Fierceton's master's degree", "University Mourns Loss of Cameron Avant Driver", "Student loses Rhodes scholarship over allegations of lying about her foster care upbringing", "Former St. Louis-area student loses Rhodes scholarship over 'false narratives', "Student Misleads With Story of Poverty and Abuse and Wins Rhodes ScholarshipNow, the Media Is Defending Her", "Did This Rhodes Wannabe Lie About Her Background? She is poor, but she has not been poor for long enough. At the end of the march they were addressed by Fierceton and other FGLI students. And, honestly, first-generation is never something Ive really identified with fully. And then The New Yorker adds in parentheses that a Penn spokesperson says: Yeah, well, thats not the definition that we use. But I think a lot of it stems from the current policies and practices of federal and local funding and what kind of programs theyre funding for kids. Cause then you cant think that it could be you. "[25], "I cannot avoid the sense that Mackenzie is being faulted for not having suffered enough", Norton told The New Yorker. And one of the main things they pointed to was that she had gone to this private school . Attached were copies of the Missouri court orders expunging Morrison's arrest and removing her name from the DSS registry. And you saw that playing out right away, right, when your biological mother was first arrested? And what area of it are you going to explore with your Ph.D.? 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. She and a separate witness said records of child-welfare agencies from years earlier are not easy to obtain. And I was actually really nervous about doing any press for this reason. Photograph by Robbie Lawrence for The New Yorker Mackenzie Fierceton grew up in a middle-class suburb of St. Louis. He died after a medical emergency in a basement of UPenn's Caster Building in 2018. [2][h], In January 2020[4] Fierceton had a seizure and collapsed during a class for one of her graduate social work courses. Enough blood? And I think its true. There was also the part of me that was terrified. 's office explained the decision to drop the charges against Morrison as based on new evidence that had emerged. Mackenzies critics even began nitpicking how much blood was in her hair while she was in the intensive care unit. RG: And all of us, no matter what our situation, are not completely safe from it. [4] It took nearly an hour, during which Fierceton seized intermittently and never completely regained consciousness, for her to be taken to the hospital. The battle between her and the school was chronicled by Rachel Aviv in the New Yorker earlier this month. And I turned over all this information to his widow. Beth Winkelstein, at the time Penn's deputy provost, signed off on her application for the school, writing that "Mackenzie understands what it is like to be an at-risk youth, and she is determined to re-make the systems that block rather than facilitate success. Now Im sobbing, Im hyperventilating, and the staff member interrupted and said: Can we have an estimate of how much time is left? Penn's admissions department thus automatically coded Fierceton as a first-generation student, a category it was seeking to increase among its undergraduate population, even though her mother had an advanced degree[2] and her grandfather was a college graduate who had taught at the University of Missouri. Yeah, I mean, so that specific definition wasnt public until 2018. Theres people who span all different kinds of experiences. They demanded that the university remove the notation from her file. And I was in a kind of unique situation where I applied to grad school at the beginning of my sophomore year of college, because I sub-matriculated. [2] Afterwards Morrison changed her daughter's last name to her own. Was there abuse before this? The court had ordered Fierceton and Morrison into family therapy, but the former was too afraid of the latter to do it. 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. 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. 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. 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. I think its a reflection of the systemic prejudices . Penn officials, of course, have said the interview was appropriate. We want to think of it as: If you were ever rich, youre always rich; if youre ever poor, youre always poor. 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. And then instantly people started picking her story apart. RG: And what was the first-generation community like on campus? And its striking to see just the continuing to push of what happened. Jay Caspian Kang sounded similar themes in two different New York Times newsletters discussing Fierceton's story. "[2][j], The evening the story ran, Ruderman called Fierceton back and told her she had received some anonymously written emails casting doubt on what she had written. RG: And whats the difference between the U.S. and English system? So, yes. What foster family were you with in X,Y, Z year? [1]:86, Morrison prospered in her medical career, and she provided generously for her daughter, allowing her to ride horses, go on river rafting trips and attend exclusive private schools, such as Whitfield, in nearby Creve Coeur, where annual tuition was almost $30,000. Yeah, so Penn First for the whole FGLI community. 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 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". The court granted Morrison a protection order against her former husband; Fierceton had no relationship with him from that time onward. "[2], That feeling was not mutual, Fierceton came to suspect. Within a year of her arrest, another St. Louis-area hospital had granted her admitting privileges, and she was able to resume her medical career. Then the University of Pennsylvania accused her of lying. 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. But they just assumed theres no way that it could have happened. 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. Right. It's a hard scholarship to win, but Fierceton. 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. MF: 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. 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. And so the fact that shes continued pursuing you to me kind of demonstrates the entire case. [2] Fierceton and her mentor reconstructed the conversation and transcribed it; the university has claimed it is inaccurate but the mentor stands by it. 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. That was my personal statement. 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. [3], Before that happened, Fierceton withdrew from the scholarship on her own. Right. Rather than it being for the purpose of benefiting the students themselves. [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. So one question was: Are you from a low-income family? You didnt grow up in crumbling projects your entire life. [2], Fierceton remained in the hospital, where DSS ordered her placed in protective custody. It's from there the story unraveled. Enough blood? Mackenzie Fierceton grew up poor, cycling through the rocky child welfare system. Fierceton was living off-campus by then, but she and her roommates decided to leave their apartment. 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