A Rhodes Scholar who gained a coveted scholarship at Oxford after claiming she overcame childhood abuse and grew up in foster care has been accused of mendacity to officers and is in reality the daughter of a radiologist who went to personal college.
Mackenzie Fierceton, 24, describes herself as a ‘queer, first technology, low revenue’ scholar at The College of Pennsylvania. In 2020, she was given a scholarship to go to Oxford after dazzling the Rhodes Belief together with her story of how she overcame welfare, an abusive mom and the foster care system.
However after a November 2020 Philadelphia Inquirer information article concerning the scholarship, lauded her as a ‘first-generation scholar’ who ‘has been low-income all through her life, and grew up in foster care,’ an nameless tipster contacted the Rhodes Belief and UPenn to report her for being ‘blatantly dishonest’.
They informed the faculties how Mackenzie – whose earlier identify was Mackenzie Morrison – went to the $30,000-a-year Whitfield non-public college in St. Louis, Missouri.
Her mom is radiologist Dr. Carrie Morrison, and her hobbies in school included horseback using, skydiving and white water rafting.
She spent lower than a yr in foster care in 2014 after telling police that her mom pushed her down stairs and left her ‘caked in blood’. Her mom was arrested for abuse on the time however the costs had been dropped because of a scarcity of proof – one thing she didn’t embrace in her admissions essays.
Now, she has withdrawn from the Rhodes program and UPenn is withholding her masters diploma pending additional investigation.
Mackenzie Fierceton, 24, describes herself as a ‘queer, first technology, low revenue’ scholar at The College of Pennsylvania, was given a scholarship to go to Oxford this yr after dazzling the Rhodes Belief together with her story of how she overcame welfare, an abusive mom and the foster care system.
In line with an investigation by The Chronicle of Larger Training, the one portion of her story which seemed to be true was that she had at one time been in foster care.
In 2014, A 17-year-old Mackenzie informed police that her mom pushed her down stairs and struck her at their 4 bed room, $750,000 suburban dwelling.
Dr. Morrison was arrested on the time however the case was dropped by prosecutors who stated they might by no means show Mackenzie’s claims.
She informed police that Mackenzie requested her to drag some gum out of her hair whereas she was standing on the prime of the staircase. Dr. Morrison stated she tried to, however that she ‘jerked’, fell down two stairs then sat down.
Mackenze’s mom, Dr Carrie Morrison, a radiologist from St. Louis. In 2014, Mackenzie informed police her mom pushed her down stairs and hit her. Dr. Morrison was arrested however the case was later dropped because of a scarcity of proof
It is unclear precisely what occurred subsequent however she spent 22 days in hospital, then went to dwell in foster look after lower than a yr.
She continued learning at Whitfield – it is unclear who paid her tuition and graduated in 2016, shortly earlier than her nineteenth birthday.
She then utilized to UPenn with a dramatic admissions essay the place she claimed her mom threw her down stairs, right into a steel desk and beat her.
In her telling of the incident, Mackenzie stated she awoke the day after it, drove herself to high school then collapsed in entrance of a trainer. She says she then awoke within the hospital, ‘caked in blood.’
She referred to her ‘facial options’ being ‘so distorted and swollen that I can’t inform them aside.’, stated going to the lavatory required an ‘military of nurses,’ and that braces stabilized ‘most of her physique’.
Mackenzie stayed with the foster care household, modified her identify to Fierceton, then utilized for faculty and was accepted.
In a press release to The Chronicle in mild of the scholarship being revoked, Dr. Morrison stated of her daughter: ‘Mackenzie is deeply cherished by her mother and household.
‘Our biggest want is that Mackenzie chooses to dwell a contented, wholesome, sincere, and productive life, utilizing her extraordinary presents for the best good.’
She wouldn’t give any additional particulars.
Mackenzie is proven in her senior yr on the non-public college. She spent lower than one yr in foster care earlier than going to school
Fierceton grew up on this 4 bed room dwelling within the St Louis suburb of Chesterfield. There’s a basketball hoop within the driveway and the property is value $750,000
Mackenzie attended the $30,000-a-year Whitfield college in St. Louis, Missouri. She graduated in 2016
Mackenzie was referred to as Mackenzie Morrison in school. She modified her identify earlier than she utilized to school
Throughout her undergraduate diploma at UPenn, Mackenzie traveled to South Africa. She graduated in Could 2020. It is unclear who paid her tuition at UPenn
In her utility to UPenn, Mackenzie recognized in utility as ‘queer’, ‘low revenue’ and a ‘first technology scholar.’
Within the Philadelphia Inquirer interview from November 2020, she described highschool as ‘a really difficult and isolating expertise’.
‘At my college, everybody form of knew me as just like the foster child who all these unhealthy issues had occurred to,’ she stated.
She didn’t point out which college she went to – or that it was non-public.
She maintains that she by no means lied and that the Rhodes Belief is attacking a ‘survivor’ of abuse.
In a lawsuit filed in December, she accused The College of Pennsylvania and Rhodes Belief investigators of victimizing her.
Throughout a Zoom interview, Mackenzie informed the investigators that it did occur, and that her mom had tried to kill her.
Sherry McClain, a nurse who tended to her verified a few of her story, saying: ‘She was bodily harm, however much more so was how in shock she was. She was simply this vacant, damaged, empty baby.’
‘It may very properly be extra exaggerated than it was, however the reality of the matter was it was legit, you recognize? I might by no means go to bat for any person who I assumed was making one thing up.’
In diary entries that had been obtained by police after the alleged 2014 abuse incident, Mackenzie wrote how she did not like her mom’s boyfriend, and wished to dwell elsewhere.
Fierceton, who was born Mackenzie Morrison, is proven with AOC in a photograph from her Fb web page. She introduced herself to college officers as a ‘queer, low revenue, first technology’ scholar
Mackenzie is proven advocating for a remedy to epilepsy. After her story made the native information in Philadelphia, an nameless tipster notified college officers that she had been ‘blatantly dishonest’ about her background
Mackenzie is proven in a Zoom presentation the place she talks about being a ‘marginalized identification’
THE PRESTIGIOUS, 118-YEAR-OLD RHODES SCHOLARSHIP THAT HAS BEEN GIVEN TO FUTURE WORLD LEADERS, JOURNALISTS AND ASTRONOMERS
British mining magnate Cecil Rhodes left a sum in his will to pay for the scholarship in 1902. His purpose was for younger males from all over the world to go to Oxford and construct bonds with different English-speaking males, with the hope they’d all change into world leaders
The coveted Rhodes Scholarship is handed out to 32 folks yearly by the Rhodes Belief, a charity established in 1903 to award proficient college students from all over the world to check in at Oxford.
It was arrange by British mining magnate and South African politician Cecil John Rhodes, with the intention of giving future leaders from all over the world a motive to check at Oxford and construct relationships with fellow English talking leaders.
Rhodes set it out in his will. He died in 1902, after serving as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony – a British colony in South Africa.
It was closely geared in direction of selling younger white privileged males; candidates needed to be single males between the ages of 19 and 25 till 1976, when ladies had been allowed to use.
Eight world leaders have obtained the scholarship – President Invoice Clinton, former President of Pakistan Wasim Sajjad, former Australian Prime Ministers Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Bob Hawke, together with a number of the previous leaders of Jamaica and Malta.
Edwin Hubble obtained the Rhodes Scholarship in 1910. Ten years later, he used the Hooker Telescope to determine far-away galaxies
Clinton gained the scholarship in 1968 shortly earlier than his commencement from Georgetown College. He was learning at Oxford when he obtained a draft discover for the Vietnam Warfare.
A younger Invoice Clinton gained the scholarship in 1968 whereas he was learning at Georgetown
Clinton was in a position to persuade Reserve Officers’ Coaching Corp in Arkansas to just accept him the earlier yr, in order that he may proceed learning.
Seven years after it was created, it was awarded to American astronomer Edwin Hubble.
Ten years later, he used the Hooker Telescope to determine house galaxies for the primary time. The NASA Hubble Telescope is known as after him.
For greater than 70 years, the scholarship was reserved for single males.
Within the Seventies, ladies had been allowed to use.
Some well-known feminine recipients embrace Obama-adviser Susan Rice, and MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.
Like all main universities and faculties all over the world, the scholarship and the dedication course of behind who receives it has change into more and more progressive in the previous few years.
The listing of 2021 winners was, unsurprisingly, probably the most numerous but.
Rachel Maddow, left, and Susan Rice, a former Obama advisor, each obtained the scholarship
She weighed up the ‘professionals and cons’ of reporting her mom for abuse, and among the many cons had been ‘may go into Foster Care,’, ‘no faculty cash, automotive, and many others’, and ‘nobody may consider me. mother may persuade everybody I’m loopy.’
Her lawsuit says she by no means lied, that she did enter foster care and that she was thought of low revenue when she utilized to school.
She says the college has fabricated the ‘nameless tip’ and is retaliating in opposition to her as a result of she beforehand reported it for well being and security issues. She claims she suffered a seizure in a basement classroom on the college and that it took too lengthy for an ambulance to reach.
In a lawsuit filed in December, Mackienzie stated the college ‘launched a sham investigation of Plaintiff, exploiting a phony and contrived administrative claims course of in opposition to considered one of its personal college students – and on the time unrepresented – and accused Plaintiff of mendacity concerning the baby abuse she suffered and her time in foster care, all of which is true and contemporaneously properly documented in courtroom file.’
The College of Pennsylvania stated it isn’t retaliating in opposition to her.
‘Penn and the Rhodes Belief obtained credible data that referred to as into query statements Ms. Fierceton made in her functions for admission, monetary help, and scholarships.
‘The Rhodes Belief performed its personal investigation, throughout which it thought of proof and arguments supplied by Ms. Fierceton and her lawyer.
It ready a complete report which was supplied to Ms. Fierceton in April 2020.
‘The Belief then gave Ms. Fierceton the chance to withdraw her candidacy if she selected to take action.
‘Ms. Fierceton accepted that supply and withdrew her candidacy.’