And thats an unfortunate reality so many survivors experience, not having a lot of documentation. RG: Like questioning: How much blood? [3], After the interview White emailed Morrison about how it went; she wrote back regretting that Fierceton continued to tell the same story. At the University of Pennsylvania, she received a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in social work through a combined five-year program. I do think that it is a huge defense mechanism that people deploy. Morrison then brought suit in circuit court to have the board's decision reviewed and reversed. And you experienced that yourself, right? 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. Others echoed the criticism. It recommended the scholarship be rescinded. Joining is simple and doesnt need to cost a lot: You can become a sustaining member for as little as $3 or $5 a month. "[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. RG: And so when you applied for your masters in social worker or sociology? Yes, definitely. Mackenzie Fierceton, a 2016 graduate of Whitfield School in Creve Coeur, lost the scholarship after allegations surfaced that she had provided "false narratives" to education officials, the New. And so thats the low-income box. Mackenzies critics even began nitpicking how much blood was in her hair while she was in the intensive care unit. Penn again spoke with Morrison and, this time as well, the St. Louis County prosecutor who had decided to drop the charges, without informing Fierceton, which the university defended as standard practice not to identify witnesses interviewed. Uh, my lawyer. She is poor, but she has not been poor for long enough. Yeah. And like you said, like, yes, obviously I was looking in a mirror, and I knew I was looking in a mirror. Yeah. Yes. And it was a very similar situation where it took everyone a long time to get to the building. Mackenzie is the soap's first transgender character, added to the series after Stone wrote to executive producer Jason Herbison to pitch the character. When she was a teenager, she showed up bloodied and bruised at her elite private school. I think [its] called Penn First, I believe, and it seems like you socially spent a lot of time with them? Thank you so much for having me. And theyll openly talk about this. And then I remembered that my teacher had told me to write a gratitude list. And then there was this other foster sibling who was the biological kid of the foster parents I was staying with, and spelling it out in that way. I didnt really know what it was going to be, but I feel like its always good to have someone with you. 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 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. So I kind of simplified that in a sentence to make my point of what I wanted to study, which was the foster-care-to-prison pipeline, which is also what I ultimately ended up doing my Ph.D. on and what I just started this year. so that people have the background there. 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". RG: And whats the difference between the U.S. and English system? "[2], In December, an anonymous 22-page letter was sent to the U.S. office of the Rhodes Trust, which administers the scholarship program. So, yes, an article came out in the local paper saying that she had been arrested. And I was actually really nervous about doing any press for this reason. MF: Yeah. And so I was like, of course, Im going to respond again. In 2019, Fierceton testified in a court hearing that, in September 2014, her mother allegedly pushed her down a set of stairs and hit her in the face several times. Penn, by questioning so much of Fierceton's story, was making itself "complicit in a long campaign of continuing abuse", she added. [4] It took nearly an hour, during which Fierceton seized intermittently and never completely regained consciousness, for her to be taken to the hospital. So the Rhodes Trust ended up after their quote-investigation, and I submitted all the evidence, they ended up still recommending that my scholarship be rescinded, uh, but I had another opportunity to respond to their report, which I absolutely wanted to do. And what area of it are you going to explore with your Ph.D.? 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. I think this is a conversation not necessarily for people who are still in question about what happened here. My life is over, Im in the hospital, Im at rock bottom. 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. 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 first-generation and/or low-income, again, is the acronym. And you saw that playing out right away, right, when your biological mother was first arrested? And she ended up responding right away, and asked to get on a phone call. And then theres also foster siblings in the sense of other people who are in the foster care system who youre living with. Because Im not under any illusion that Im the typical foster kid. "[27], For the Penn investigation, Fierceton relied on the definition on the webpage for Penn First Plus, the university's support program for FGLI students, which includes the language about the student having a "strained or limited relationship" with the graduate parent. In April, the trust's investigative committee produced a 15-page report praising Fierceton as "gifted, driven, and charismatic" but concluding ultimately that she "created and repeatedly shared false narratives about herself", noting in particular her references to injuries she was treated for in her September 2014 hospital stay that are not reflected in her medical records. I cant remember if it was in the Rhodes essay or in another essay that, in hindsight, you wouldve tightened up. [3] "Mackenzie may have centered certain aspects of her background to the exclusion of othersfor reasons we are certain she feels are validin a way that creates a misimpression," the report said. 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. Did you go into foster care? Fierceton grew up in a wealthy community and attended an elite private school in a St. Louis suburb. And just Deputy Provost Finkelstein saying: No. ", Morrison said. So they didnt ask about that in this meeting. She bounced from one foster home to the next. And so they had to see some benefit to them in doing this. Those investigations revealed that for the first 17 years of her life, Fierceton was raised by her mother, Dr. Carrie Morrison, an accomplished physician. There were definitely, Im sure. [3], By the end of the interview Fierceton was crying. ", 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. The court had ordered Fierceton and Morrison into family therapy, but the former was too afraid of the latter to do it. 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 I turned over all this information to his widow. 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. She and a separate witness said records of child-welfare agencies from years earlier are not easy to obtain. [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. And thats actually one of the things that, if there was any doubt whatsoever about this story, in some ways it was settled by that. 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. And that is part of what felt like it gave me such a home, is because we had these sort of underlying shared experiences, but all came from different backgrounds to an extent, and all still supported and accepted one another. I asked specifically about those boxes and the answer I got was again, this was multiple years ago, but it was something along the lines of I dont think that biological parents are relevant to this. 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. 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. If you enjoy this podcast, be sure to also check out Intercepted as well as Murderville, which is now in its second season. The New Yorker reported it was written by an anonymous sender who displayed a great deal of familiarity with Mackenzies childhood that showed Mackenzie engaging in typical upper middle-class childhood activities, like horseback riding and going to the beach.. 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. Given the pandemic, Rhodes Scholar judges interviewed candidates over Zoom. So I was like: OK, fine. Penn, she claimed, had leaked that information to the Inquirer whose editor-in-chief was married to Louisa Shepard, the university's news director, whom she named as a defendant along with Finkelstein, White, and the university's board of trustees. Because thats not how we understand poverty. And I think its true. So thats the background of him. And so, just the immediate reaction was like: Theres no way. RG: That was Mackenzie Fierceton and thats our show. She ruined her moms career. Not as something that is for the benefit of the MacKenzies, the people who were being brought into the school, but actually for the benefit of the university itself, its image and also for the students. But it was definitely something I saw happening sort of this funneling of kids from the child welfare to criminal justice system. Why would I do that? And Im kind of one of the lucky ones where I had really expansive and thorough documentation for all the parts of this story. But I got a bit of pressure from Penn to do that. RG: Right. Our producer is Zach Young. And please go and leave us a rating or a review it helps people find the show. Now Im sobbing, Im hyperventilating, and the staff member interrupted and said: Can we have an estimate of how much time is left? [3] The change in her living situation greatly complicated her college plans as she had no financial resources of her own. 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. Attached were copies of the Missouri court orders expunging Morrison's arrest and removing her name from the DSS registry. Professor Walter Licht, a Penn historian who runs the program, recalls her as the sort of student who would "[ask] a question that makes everyone stop and brings the conversation to a different pitch." The award brings the number of Penn Rhodes Scholars to 31 since the scholarship's inception in 1902. 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?" And I asked in the email exchange: Is this about the anonymous email? Its a very different lifestyle. January 7, 2022. It didnt, though, to the University of Pennsylvania. And you saw that playing out right away, right, when your biological mother was first arrested? Or whatever our kind of contemporary version of it is. 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. 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. The show was mixed by William Stanton. And that dynamic, I would say, [laughs] probably played a big part in all of this. I was in this private school with a lot of upper-middle class or wealthy white students. 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. [2], Morrison, no longer employed by St. Luke's, then began the process of trying to restore her reputation by having all references to it removed from the public record. [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. [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. That was my personal statement. Theyre not on a website. But it doesnt mean you were always low-income, just that you are now. And how much confidence do you have that that anonymous complainer was Carrie, your biological mother. "[2], On her application, Fierceton recounted her background and the unexpected way it led to her becoming a foster child. [2], Two months later the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. Ultimately, she lost her Rhodes Scholarship, and Penn withheld her masters degree, demanding a letter of apology. So [laughs] I feel like I could go on for hours about that. Mother and daughter both told the same stories they had earlier; Morrison depicted her daughter as "willful and intense", claiming she had bought and read many books to try to help her understand the issues she said Fierceton had. Photograph by Robbie Lawrence for The New Yorker Mackenzie Fierceton grew up in a middle-class suburb of St. Louis. And eventually they filed a big wrongful death lawsuit in August 2020. So I started while I was an undergrad and was taking classes at the same time. [14], The publicity led 150 Penn students to stage a walkout from classes to demonstrate in support of Fierceton. And then theres also foster siblings in the sense of other people who are in the foster care system who youre living with. We want to think of it as: If you were ever rich, youre always rich; if youre ever poor, youre always poor. "[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. MF: Yeah. The 23-year-old planned to use. Fierceton, according to Penn's response, had learned during her parents' divorce how to make calls to the child-abuse hotline and that teachers were mandatory reporters. You have a good education and youre clearly smart. Our grad school had no specific definitions or instructions, but I did have a relationship with the associate director of admissions at the time. Like, those two things dont fit together. And so when you applied for your masters in social worker or sociology? Betsy Reed is The Intercepts editor in chief. 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