In article <s9b3kc$27ts$13@neodome.net>
Phantom <Phantom_View4@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Democrats are all fucking lunatics and liars.
>

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.

�Mackenzie is so deserving of this prestigious
opportunity,� declared president Amy Gutmann of the 23-year-old
from suburban St. Louis. �As a first-generation [to go to
college] low-income student and a former foster youth, Mackenzie
is passionate about championing young people [and] dedicating
herself to a life of public service.�

But a few months later, Fierceton had lost her prestigious
scholarship and was fighting against accusations that she had
been �blatantly dishonest� about her childhood in her Penn and
Rhodes applications.

Now, the investigation into her story is being revealed by the
Chronicle of Higher Education � including the Rhodes committee�s
findings that Fierceton �created and repeatedly shared false
narratives about herself,� using these �misrepresentations� to
�serve her interests as an applicant for competitive programs.�

The case also exposes the murky underbelly of elite schools like
Penn and their quest to �show that they�re transforming society
rather than laundering its inequalities� by accepting
�remarkable� applicants with truly tragic backgrounds, according
to the Chronicle report.

Multiple college consultants told The Post that the college
application process now features more questions about overcoming
obstacles. The 2021-2022 essay prompts from Common App, the
organization that oversees undergrad applications for more than
900 schools, include �Recount a time when you faced a challenge,
setback, or failure.�

�There are a lot of pressures out there for applications right
now,� Marco Santini, a New York-based college education
consultant, told The Post. �I always try to tell students not to
do the sob story because there is always someone with a sadder
story. I tell students that when they submit their application,
they have to make sure that everything they have said in their
personal statement is true � that they have to stand by what
they wrote.�

Categorizing herself as a first-generation, low-income student
with a history of horrific abuse � who also earned nearly
straight A�s and was student body president in high school �
Fierceton certainly fit the bill. She was admitted to Penn in
2015 to study political science, then began studying for a
clinical master�s degree in social work in 2018.

When Fierceton�s Rhodes Scholarship was announced, the
Philadelphia Inquirer profiled the academic star in November
2020, noting that she �grew up poor, cycling through the rocky
child welfare system [and] bounced from one foster home to the
next.�

As Fierceton said in that story: �I would trade [the Rhodes
honor] to have been adopted and have a family.�

But after that Nov. 22, 2020, profile ran, an anonymous accuser
sent an email to Penn and the Rhodes Trust, claiming Fierceton�s
story was �blatantly dishonest.� The email reportedly alleged
that Fierceton grew up in St. Louis, Mo., with her mother, an
educated radiologist; that her family was upper-middle class;
and that she had attended a fancy private high school and
enjoyed such high-end hobbies as horseback riding.

The Post could not confirm when Penn received this email.
Fierceton gave statements to her hometown paper directly
referencing her attendance at the Whitfield School and thanking
several teachers there who had mentored her in an article
published Nov. 24, 2020.

According to the Chronicle, Fierceton lived with her mother,
Carrie Morrison � a divorc�e and director of breast imaging and
mammography at a local hospital � �on a [suburban] tree-lined
cul-de-sac with large houses and well-groomed lawns.�

She attended Whitfield, a $30,000-a-year private school in St.
Louis, although the Chronicle does not note how her tuition was
paid for or if she received financial aid.

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. The teen said she
was sent to the hospital the next day after collapsing at
school. Fierceton�s mother denied the account and said the teen
had accidentally gone down two or three steps while Morrison was
helping remove gum from her hair.

Morrison told the Chronicle in a statement: �Mackenzie is deeply
loved by her mom and family. Our greatest desire is that
Mackenzie chooses to live a happy, healthy, honest, and
productive life, using her extraordinary gifts for the highest
good.� (The Post was not able to reach Morrison, Fierceton or
Fierceton�s lawyer, Dion Rassias, for comment.)

After the 2014 incident, Morrison was arrested and charged with
two counts of felony child abuse or neglect and one count of
misdemeanor assault � charges that were later dropped. An email
from assistant prosecuting attorney Michael Hayes, quoted in the
Chronicle, said: �The more I learned [about the case], the less
certain I became about what really happened.�

When Penn received the anonymous accusations about Fierceton,
she was reportedly questioned in the fall of 2020 by the
university�s deputy provost, Dr. Beth Winkelstein, about
everything from her mother�s job and income to the trash bag of
donated clothes she said she had dragged from one foster home to
another in her essay application for Rhodes.

According to Winkelstein�s subsequent report, Fierceton was
raised in an upper-middle-class household; it also notes her
mother is a radiologist and that her grandfather had graduated
from college.

No one disputes that Fierceton spent a year in official foster
care, during which she bounced around to different homes, and
then continued to live with a foster family. But Winkelstein
said in a letter to the Rhodes committee, sent a week after her
call with Fierceston, that the student had �constructed a
narrative regarding her childhood� and recommended that the
committee conduct its own probe, which it did in April 2021.

The Rhodes committee questioned Fierceton about the
undergraduate essay she wrote when applying to Penn. In it, she
detailed her hospital stay after the alleged incident with her
mother, including claims that her hair was �caked with dried
blood� and her facial features were �so distorted and swollen
that I cannot tell them apart.�

The committee concluded that this was �inconsistent with the
hospital records,� adding, �Either [Fierceton] has fabricated
this abuse by her mother, or her mother has lied about the
terrible abuse��

The committee recommended that Fierceton�s Rhodes Scholarship be
revoked. In response, she withdrew herself from the honor.

�Penn and the Rhodes Trust received credible information that
called into question statements Ms. Fierceton made in her
applications for admission, financial assistance, and
scholarships,� a Penn spokesperson told The Post. �The Rhodes
Trust conducted its own investigation, during which it
considered evidence and arguments provided by Ms. Fierceton and
her attorney � The Trust then gave Ms. Fierceton the opportunity
to withdraw her candidacy if she chose to do so. Ms. Fierceton
accepted that offer and withdrew her candidacy.�

The Rhodes Trust did not get back to The Post for comment.

Penn then followed up with its own formal investigation in
August 2021, probing Fierceton�s assertion that she would be the
first in her family to graduate from college.

As the Chronicle reports: �If �first generation� means the first
in one�s family to attend college � the widely used, common-
sense meaning � Fierceton�s answer would be plainly false.�

However, according to the school�s website, this definition can
also include students who are the first in their families to
�pursue higher education at an elite institution.� Fierceton�s
mother did not attend an Ivy League university, though the
Chronicle does not note where Morrison went to college.

Furthermore, the website for Penn First Plus, the school�s
inclusivity initiative, broadens the definition of first-
generation to include students who �have a strained or limited
relationship with the person(s) in your family who hold(s) a
bachelors degree.�

By the time she applied to Penn, Fierceton was estranged from
her mother and supporting herself. Still, the school found
Fierceton describing herself as �first-generation� on her
application to graduate school to be �objectively inaccurate.�

Santini, the college consultant, noted: �On the economic side,
there are so many applications to schools that it is impossible
for schools to fact check everything.�

Penn is now withholding Fierceton�s master�s degree � which she
was scheduled to receive in May 2020 � pending a final
disciplinary decision. Her bachelor�s degree is seemingly not in
question.