A Rhodes Scholar who received 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 actual fact the daughter of a radiologist who went to personal faculty.
Mackenzie Fierceton, 24, describes herself as a 'queer, first technology, low earnings' 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.
In a November 2020 Philadelphia Inquirer information article concerning the scholarship, she was lauded as a 'first-generation scholar' who 'has been low-income all through her life, and grew up in foster care.'
She stated on the time that she would have traded the celebrated scholarship to have been 'adopted and have a household'.
However in actuality, she went to the $30,000-a-year Whitfield personal faculty in St. Louis, Missouri. Her mom is heart specialist Dr. Carrie Morrison, and her hobbies in school included horseback using, skydiving and white water rafting.
She spent lower than a 12 months 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 fees had been dropped because of a scarcity of proof - one thing she didn't embody in her admissions essays.
The article about her scholarship prompted an nameless tip to the Rhodes Belief and UPenn which included particulars of her charmed upbringing and images of her in class.
Now, she has withdrawn from the Rhodes program and UPenn is withholding her masters diploma pending additional investigation.
In accordance with an investigation by The Chronicle of Increased Training, the one portion of her story which gave the impression to be true was that she had at one time been in foster care.
In 2014, A 17-year-old Mackenzie instructed police that her mom pushed her down stairs and struck her at their 4 bed room, $750,000 suburban residence.
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 instructed police that Mackenzie requested her to tug some gum out of her hair whereas she was standing on the high of the staircase. Dr. Morrison stated she tried to, however that she 'jerked', fell down two stairs then sat down.
It is unclear precisely what occurred subsequent however she spent 22 days in hospital, then went to stay in foster take care of lower than a 12 months.
She continued finding out 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 highschool 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 not 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 school and was accepted.
In a press release to The Chronicle in gentle of the scholarship being revoked, Dr. Morrison stated of her daughter: 'Mackenzie is deeply liked by her mother and household.
'Our best want is that Mackenzie chooses to stay a contented, wholesome, sincere, and productive life, utilizing her extraordinary presents for the very best good.'
She wouldn't give any additional particulars.
In her utility to UPenn, Mackenzie recognized in utility as 'queer', 'low earnings' 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 faculty, everybody form of knew me as just like the foster child who all these dangerous issues had occurred to,' she stated.
She didn't point out which faculty she went to - or that it was personal.
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 instructed 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 youngster.'
'It might very properly be extra exaggerated than it was, however the reality of the matter was it was legit, you realize? I'd 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 needed to stay elsewhere.
She weighed up the 'execs and cons' of reporting her mom for abuse, and among the many cons had been 'might go into Foster Care,', 'no faculty cash, automobile, and many others', and 'nobody might imagine me. mother might persuade everybody I'm loopy.'
Her lawsuit says she by no means lied, that she did enter foster care and that she was thought-about low earnings when she utilized to varsity.
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 considerations. She claims she suffered a seizure in a basement classroom on the faculty 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 one among its personal college students - and on the time unrepresented - and accused Plaintiff of mendacity concerning the youngster abuse she suffered and her time in foster care, all of which is true and contemporaneously properly documented in courtroom file.'
