And that dynamic, I would say, [laughs] probably played a big part in all of this. "I really don't have words,'" she told a mentor at the Penn Women's Center. Morrison had told the admitting physician that she had not been present when her daughter was hurt but believed she had fallen down the stairs in the house, which the hospital accepted as the likely cause, even though her fearfulness was also noted. Last month my social media feeds were flooded with the tale of Mackenzie Fierceton, a University of Pennsylvania graduate who lost her Rhodes scholarship to Oxford after allegations she had misrepresented her background. A 24-year-old Missouri woman who won a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University has left the program following accusations that she misrepresented her life experience on her. [2], Over the middle of 2020, Fierceton became active in the Black Lives Matter protests at Penn. Former St. Louis woman who spent time in foster care named Rhodes Scholar 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". "[b] She considered running away but had a distant relationship with her father, and nowhere else she believed she could go. the evidence was strong enough and serious enough that Mackenzie was put in foster care . 24-year-old Mackenzie Fierceton won a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship last year to study at Oxford University, and now she's lost her place at the school after . [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. was truthful, Rafaelle feared that Penn might share its information with the government and if the U.S. Attorney decided to pursue a prosecution, it would be likely to last a long time and consume much of her attention. "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. Upon receiving a Rhodes Scholarship, questions arose about Fierceton's background and if it was accurately represented. [2], For her senior year, Whitfield gave Fierceton a full scholarship. According to Fierceton, her mother pushed her down the stairs and then beat her extensively at the bottom. Rhodes Scholarship Revoked: White Woman Grad Student Lied She Was Poor The court granted Morrison a protection order against her former husband; Fierceton had no relationship with him from that time onward. "[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. [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. 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 teen said she was sent to. Penn, by questioning so much of Fierceton's story, was making itself "complicit in a long campaign of continuing abuse", she added. ", 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. Mackenzie Fierceton, 24, claimed she was from a poor background and grew up in foster care when she actually attended private school By Phoebe Southworth 13 January 2022 8:00pm Mackenzie. "She was a foster child, but not for long enough. It's a hard scholarship to win, but Fierceton . Jan 18, 2022. Morrison's name was therefore ordered removed from the DSS registry. "[2], On her application, Fierceton recounted her background and the unexpected way it led to her becoming a foster child. [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. . Fierceton documented the physical and psychological abuse her mother subjected her to during her high school years. Mackenzie Fierceton: The Problem with Elite Colleges, The Victimhood Industrial Complex, & Privilege . [2], In March 2014, Fierceton began keeping a secret diary[a] documenting her life and her ruminations on her situation, writing it in her bedroom closet by the light of her phone and hiding it behind a ventilation panel. An Ivy League Student Accused of Lying About Her Past [2] Fierceton and her mentor reconstructed the conversation and transcribed it; the university has claimed it is inaccurate but the mentor stands by it. "I had so much anger and grief, and I didn't want them to be affiliated in any way with this new life I was building. In between those placements, she slept at friends' houses for long periods. As in Fierceton's case, it took an hour to remove Driver from the building. . [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. Backstories By Tom Bartlett January 7, 2022 O ne Monday morning in the fall of 2020, Mackenzie. 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. Mackenzie Fierceton on Her Battle With UPenn - The Intercept [10], Fierceton, who outside of school had also taken on a volunteer position as a birthing doula, decided during that summer to apply for a Rhodes Scholarship to get a Ph.D. at Oxford University in England, encouraged by a classmate who had just won one himself and was impressed by her activism. The New Yorker's Article About Mackenzie Fierceton From St - FilmyToast [2], In July the OSC concluded its investigation with a 31-page report sent to provost Wendell Pritchett examining Fierceton's background more extensively than the Rhodes Trust had. Woman who bounced among foster homes named Rhodes Scholar Supporters of Fierceton's mother called Mackenzie an emotionally manipulative girl who would injure herself and fabricate abuse indicators to be an appealing candidate for admission to an Ivy League college such as the University of Pennsylvania. Period." Fierceton wrote to SP2 dean Sara Bachman complaining about the interview, saying she felt "worthlessness, hopelessness, and shame" for a week afterwards. After graduating from Whitfield School in 2016, Fierceton earned a bachelor's degree in political science in 2018 from the University of . "[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. An investigation by both the Rhodes Trust and Penn concluded she failed to correct statements and impressions made in her application essays. [23] In mid-April, Penn released Fierceton's master's degree. The problem was that the sad story Mackenzie Fierceton was telling colleges and committees did not match the year of her life spent in foster care. . Mackenzie Fierceton, who completed her undergraduate degree in May and is now completing a master's degree in social work at Penn, has been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. Mackenzie Fierceton. Or was the real issue that Fierceton did not really fit the profile of a suffering student who needed the benevolence of an Ivy League school?" Fierceton wished that she had been more willing to correct mistaken impressions that she might have made and at the time "just kind of crumbled behind the pressure. In May 2022, after a lengthy article in The New Yorker drew widespread media attention to Fierceton's story, the university dropped the charge and awarded her the degree. Her account was not completely inaccurateshe described as a foster child one sibling of hers who was actually the biological child of her foster parents, for instance, which she attributed later to not having developed her essay at length. [2], The next morning, when Fierceton awoke, Morrison told her she was taking her car keys and telling the school she was sick. [9] In a news release, Penn's then-president Amy Gutmann, a daughter of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany who had herself been the first in her family to attend college,[11] spoke admiringly of Fierceton as "a first-generation low-income student and a former foster youth. STL woman lost Rhodes scholarship for 'blatantly dishonest' The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Mackenzie Fierceton claims that Penn officials targeted the grad student for retaliation after she became a key witness in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the university. The father's message was forwarded to Penn's general counsel, Wendy White, who got in touch with Morrison. Raised in Chesterfield, Missouri, a West County suburb of St. Louis, she attended and graduated from the Whitfield School in Creve Coeur. [2][4], After she had recovered from her seizure incident earlier that year, fellow students told her how difficult it had been for first responders to get to the basement of Caster Hall, where SP2 is based and holds most of its classes, and how difficult it had been to get her out. A picture of her was posted at the nurse's station should she make the attempt. ", "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=1144986758, controversy over representation of childhood and abuse, This page was last edited on 16 March 2023, at 16:53. [2], Fierceton was accepted at the University of Pennsylvania (commonly known as Penn) on a full scholarship, arranged through QuestBridge. St. Louis Rhodes scholar has honor revoked after investigation reveals The University of Pennsylvania on Tuesday announced it will stop withholding a master's degree from Mackenzie Fierceton, the former student at the center of a recent New Yorker magazine . It's Way Too Easy for Privileged Kids to Fake Being Working Class he asked in the first. [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. She shared with the former screenshots of online chats and printouts of emails with representatives of the, The Rhodes Trust report found that the Penn police had no records of any calls to them from Fierceton about this. "[2], When Fierceton returned to the St. Louis area on vacations and breaks, she stayed with friends. She bounced from one foster home to the next. Rich privileged white girl Mackenzie Fierceton lies about being poor Two weeks into the school year, she realized she had been wrong. What are the details? I n November 2020, University of Pennsylvania graduate student Mackenzie Fierceton, 24, won the Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University. It recommended that Fierceton's master's be withheld until she paid a $4,000 fine and that her academic transcript carry a notation that she was sanctioned for her "objective inaccuracy" in answering the first-generation question on her application. Mackenzie Fierceton - Wikipedia In November 2020, when University of Pennsylvania graduate student Mackenzie Fierceton won the prestigious and highly competitive Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford one of just 32 scholars selected from a pool of 2,300 applicants she was praised by the Ivy League school's president in a newsletter. The wellness director told her she would have to notify the state's Department of Social Services (DSS) of the incident. Penn claims that was meant purely for purposes of the program, to attract as many students as possible who could benefit from participation in it. Fostering Youth Voices - The Pennsylvania Gazette While at Oxford, Fierceton intends to research the child welfare system and conduct a comparative study of social safety nets in . Her mentor told Licht afterwards that "it felt like an attack on a student" and that she had never experienced anything like it. mackenzie fierceton lovelace Mackenzie Fierceton, 23, a 2016 graduate of the Whitfield School in Creve Coeur, is one of just 32 U.S. college students awarded a four-year scholarship for graduate studies at the University of Oxford in England. In November 2020, when University of Pennsylvania graduate student Mackenzie Fierceton won the prestigious and highly competitive Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford one of just 32 scholars selected from a pool of 2,300 applicants she was praised by the Ivy League school's president in a newsletter. 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].
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