Rhodes Scholar who claimed she grew up poor and in foster care loses her scholarship after officials learned she grew up in a middle-class family with a radiologist mother and attended a $30,000-a-year private school
A Rhodes Scholar who won a coveted scholarship at Oxford after claiming she overcame childhood abuse and grew up in foster care has been accused of lying to officials and is in fact the daughter of a radiologist who went to private school.
Mackenzie Fierceton, 24, describes herself as a 'queer, first generation, low income' student at The University of Pennsylvania. In 2020, she was given a scholarship to go to Oxford after dazzling the Rhodes Trust with her story of how she overcame welfare, an abusive mother and the foster care system.
In a November 2020 Philadelphia Inquirer news article about the scholarship, she was lauded as a 'first-generation student' who 'has been low-income throughout her life, and grew up in foster care.'
She said at the time that she would have traded the prestigious scholarship to have been 'adopted and have a family'.
But in reality, she went to the $30,000-a-year Whitfield private school in St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother is radiologist Dr. Carrie Morrison, and her hobbies at school included horseback riding, skydiving and white water rafting.
She spent less than a year in foster care in 2014 after telling police that her mother pushed her down stairs and left her 'caked in blood'. Her mother was arrested for abuse at the time but the charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence - something she did not include in her admissions essays.
The article about her scholarship prompted an anonymous tip to the Rhodes Trust and UPenn which included details of her charmed upbringing and photos of her in school.
Now, she has withdrawn from the Rhodes program and UPenn is withholding her masters degree pending further investigation.
Mackenzie Fierceton, 24, describes herself as a 'queer, first generation, low income' student at The University of Pennsylvania, was given a scholarship to go to Oxford this year after dazzling the Rhodes Trust with her story of how she overcame welfare, an abusive mother and the foster care system.
According to an investigation by The Chronicle of Higher Education, the only portion of her story which appeared to be true was that she had at one time been in foster care.
In 2014, A 17-year-old Mackenzie told police that her mother pushed her down stairs and struck her at their four bedroom, $750,000 suburban home.
Dr. Morrison was arrested at the time but the case was dropped by prosecutors who said they could never prove Mackenzie's claims.
She told police that Mackenzie asked her to pull some gum out of her hair while she was standing at the top of the staircase. Dr. Morrison said she tried to, but that she 'jerked', fell down two stairs then sat down.
Mackenze's mother, Dr Carrie Morrison, a radiologist from St. Louis. In 2014, Mackenzie told police her mother pushed her down stairs and hit her. Dr. Morrison was arrested but the case was later dropped due to a lack of evidence
It's unclear exactly what happened next but she spent 22 days in hospital, then went to live in foster care for less than a year.
She continued studying at Whitfield - it's unclear who paid her tuition and graduated in 2016, shortly before her 19th birthday.
She then applied to UPenn with a dramatic admissions essay where she claimed her mother threw her down stairs, into a metal table and beat her.
In her telling of the incident, Mackenzie said she woke up the day after it, drove herself to school then collapsed in front of a teacher. She says she then woke up in the hospital, 'caked in blood.'
She referred to her 'facial features' being 'so distorted and swollen that I cannot tell them apart.', said going to the bathroom required an 'army of nurses,' and that braces stabilized 'most of her body'.
Mackenzie stayed with the foster care family, changed her name to Fierceton, then applied for college and was accepted.
In a statement to The Chronicle in light of the scholarship being revoked, Dr. Morrison said of her daughter: '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.'
She would not give any further details.
Mackenzie is shown in her senior year at the private school. She spent less than one year in foster care before going to college
Fierceton grew up in this four bedroom home in the St Louis suburb of Chesterfield. There is a basketball hoop in the driveway and the property is worth $750,000
Mackenzie attended the $30,000-a-year Whitfield school in St. Louis, Missouri. She graduated in 2016
In her application to UPenn, Mackenzie identified in application as 'queer', 'low income' and a 'first generation student.'
In the Philadelphia Inquirer interview from November 2020, she described high school as 'a very challenging and isolating experience'.
'At my school, everyone kind of knew me as like the foster kid who all these bad things had happened to,' she said.
She did not mention which school she went to - or that it was private.
She maintains that she never lied and that the Rhodes Trust is attacking a 'survivor' of abuse.
In a lawsuit filed in December, she accused The University of Pennsylvania and Rhodes Trust investigators of victimizing her.
During a Zoom interview, Mackenzie told the investigators that it did happen, and that her mother had tried to kill her.
Sherry McClain, a nurse who tended to her verified some of her story, saying: 'She was physically hurt, but even more so was how in shock she was. She was just this vacant, broken, empty child.'
'It could very well be more exaggerated than it was, but the fact of the matter was it was legit, you know? I would never go to bat for somebody who I thought was making something up.'
In diary entries that were obtained by police after the alleged 2014 abuse incident, Mackenzie wrote how she didn't like her mother's boyfriend, and wanted to live elsewhere.
Fierceton, who was born Mackenzie Morrison, is shown with AOC in a photo from her Facebook page. She presented herself to university officials as a 'queer, low income, first generation' student
Mackenzie is shown advocating for a cure to epilepsy. After her story made the local news in Philadelphia, an anonymous tipster notified university officials tha she had been 'blatantly dishonest' about her background
Mackenzie is shown in a Zoom presentation where she talks about being a 'marginalized identity'
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