It’s Getting a Little Crowded
Academia’s Problem With Centering Themselves in Someone Else’s Lived Experience
Getting Acquainted With The Latest Scandal
Back in January 2022, I saw traction-gaining headlines about another “faker” in academia. I thought to myself, “Oh, boy. Not again.”
I barely recovered from the Jessica Krug, aka Jessica La Bombalera debacle. A student by the name of Mackenzie Fierceton from the University of Pennsylvania had her Rhodes Scholarship revoked, and the degrees she earned were rescinded. Her crime? According to her alma mater, lying about being low-income, growing up in foster care, and being a first-generation student.
I found this particularly triggering as I spent almost nine years of my childhood in foster care and the trauma I experienced made it life-debilitating as an adult. Luckily, I found a backdoor into Columbia University as a nontraditional student. The School of General Studies required a detailed autobiographical essay. It was a grueling endeavor as I had to lay my trauma bare. I described the severe abuse I experienced in foster care, witnessing the attempted murder of an overnight staff at a residential treatment center I lived in, and so much more that happened to me as I grew older. When I was finally accepted, I was overcome with extreme happiness. My Ivy League journey sadly didn’t live up to my expectations, but that's a saga to be told at another time.
I read a few articles written about Mackenzie Fierceton. In an article published in November 2020 by The Philadelphia Inquirer, the headline states that she aged out of foster care. Further, it was written that she grew up poor and “cycled through the rocky child welfare system”. She was quoted saying, “At my school, everyone kind of knew me as like the foster kid to who all these bad things had happened.”
The fact is that Fierceton spent her senior year in the foster care system after being removed from her mother’s care. There were allegations of abuse, and people in her life were able to corroborate these claims. Her mother, Carrie Morrison, is a well-respected figure in the medical community. She was able to provide her daughter with private school education, a home in an affluent suburb, and other enriching activities a low-income foster child wouldn’t have the opportunity to experience.
Child abuse certainly doesn’t only happen in the shadowy margins of society, but it also occurs in households of societal respectability. Thankfully, Fierceton was removed, and her claims were taken seriously despite the standing her mother had with their community. My concerns aren’t focused on the perceived validity of the abuse allegations but on the fact she co-opted a narrative that wasn’t hers. Should her childhood abuse be called into question because she grew up privileged? No, it shouldn’t. However, she didn’t see it necessary to iron out any kinks in her trauma narrative.
Checking Off A Box
As mentioned, I’m a former foster care youth, but I also identified as low-income. I called one of the poorest zip codes in New York City home, and my life experiences were spawned from such a reality. I don’t identify as a first-generation college student because I have many college-educated family members, including my parents. My mother was born into Irish American Aristocracy. My great-great-grandfather was Thomas E. Murray, whose innovative genius allowed him to infiltrate a non-Catholic, predominately Protestant, New York Society.
Like Mackenzie Fierceton, my mother had a privileged childhood but secretly lived in an abusive household. My grandmother — her mother — psychologically abused her. My grandmother was a celebrated socialite who dated Errol Flynn. Who would believe someone like her was an abusive mother? As a result of this, my mother suffered from severe depression and anxiety. This caused her downward mobility and eventual familial alienation. That’s how I ended up with the childhood I did. As tragic as it was, I still wouldn't qualify as a first-generation student.
For the sake of transparency, I succinctly revealed my family lineage in my autobiographical essay for my Columbia University application. I checked off boxes truthfully. I met other students who were a part of the FGLI — First-Generation Low-Income — demographic. Often they assumed I was first-generation, and I corrected the mistake every time. I’m very mindful of not taking up space or centering myself in lived experiences or identities that aren’t mine to claim.
Literary Contortion
A few months went by as the scandal appeared to have died down, The New Yorker published a lengthy article. While one should appreciate how it detailed the horrific physical abuse Mackenzie Fierceton endured from her mother and sexual abuse at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend, I couldn’t help but notice the desperate attempts to downplay the fact she co-opted marginalized identities that weren’t hers, to begin with.
The article briefly mentioned the suspicious timing of the University of Pennsylvania’s investigation into her past. Fierceton was a witness in a wrongful death lawsuit of a fellow student. I do have to admit the timing is suspicious. She displayed moral righteousness to help another student’s family get answers and/or justice for a loved one who’s no longer alive to defend himself. I was left disturbed to read that the University of Pennsylvania contacted Mackenzie Fierceton’s mother — her abuser — to be a part of the investigation into her daughter. I do also have to admit that whether the University of Pennsylvania’s motives were retaliatory or not, it exposed that her trauma narrative was riddled with embellishments.
When interviewed for The Philadelphia Inquirer, she claimed she was known as the “foster kid” at her school. Upon reading The New Yorker article, I concluded she was known as the private school girl with mysterious injuries. Many of her friends, parents, and school faculty supported her abuse claims. Her school was kind enough to allow her to finish her education as a scholarship student.
I found the tweaking of what defines a person as “low-income” or “first-generation” as an attempt to downplay Fierceton’s embellishments very problematic. She did the tweaking along with her supporters. She insinuated that since she was in foster care, she belonged to “the state.” Mackenzie Fierceton wasn’t a ward of the state to my knowledge, and her mother didn’t sign her parental rights away. She emotionally and from a “legal” standpoint felt like she didn’t have a family, so she was a “first-generation” student. She wasn’t supported by her mother’s high income during her last year in high school, so she was “low-income”.
Mackenzie Fierceton and her supporters utilize the word “nuance” to describe the act of not correcting assumptions about her background. I feel she had many opportunities to set the record straight, but according to her, she was too intimidated to assert herself to make necessary corrections. Navigating university life without familial or community support was a real thing she struggled with upon her admittance. Unfortunately, withholding details of her unique life experience or letting people run with a narrative that wasn’t her lived experience could be perceived as an act of deceit.
“When you are in foster care, your legal guardian is the state,” Mackenzie responded, according to the reconstruction. “I was considered the only generation at this point.” She went on, “I legally did not have parents and never considered them as such to begin with.” — Mackenzie Fierceton for The New Yorker
Fierceton claimed she was embarrassed about her time in foster care. I believe her because, as an adult, I buried the trauma foster care caused me for many years. I was afraid people wouldn’t understand or assume my mother was neglectful or abusive. It was the opposite, as I remember her being very intuitive of my emotional well-being and showering me with love. We were a poor white family living in a mostly Black low-income apartment complex in The Bronx, and our school railroaded my mother with trumped-up child neglect allegations. For Mackenzie Fierceton’s source of embarrassment, I can’t comment on it because that’s her lived experience.
To circle back on my uneasiness with tweaking the meaning of “low-income” and “first-generation,” to me, “low-income” means growing up in a household with an annual income that would constitute “low-income,” and “first-generation” is a person who’s the first in the family to go to college. Mackenzie Fierceton benefitted from her abusive mother’s high income for most of her life, and she wasn’t the first person in her family to attend college.
Fierceton was technically a foster care youth who aged out; it was because of the timing of her entry into the foster care system. She led the public to believe she was raised by the foster care system and endured many foster care placements. She co-opted a narrative that wasn’t her lived experience. The average foster care youth who ages out ends up with dangerous and/or fatal life outcomes. They rarely find their way into an Ivy League university.
What About The Poor Kids?
The commentary in reaction to The New Yorker article and statements made by the peers of Mackenzie Fierceton at the University of Pennsylvania was extremely demeaning to FGLI students who grew up in poverty and went to inner-city public schools.
Fierceton’s FGLI ally and supporter, Anea Moore, wrote a letter on her behalf to the Rhodes Trust. Moore is a founding member of Penn First and welcomed Fierceton into the University of Pennsylvania’s FGLI fold. I thought the statement she provided for the article to be a perpetuation of respectability politics, elitism, and shame of students who came from poverty and failing public schools. Members who are born into respectable society or manage to infiltrate it can’t help themselves from creating a spectrum of importance and/or prestige when categorizing others.
“When I founded Penn First, it was for students just like her, and her membership and leadership in the club was welcomed with open arms,” she explained. “FGLI kids can go to private school and/or college preparatory school just as Mackenzie did. We are not all inner-city children who live in filthy ghettos and attend crumbling, rat-infested public schools as the wider media may portray us to be.” — Anea Moore supporter and fellow FGLI peer at the University of Pennsylvania
On Twitter, people are clamoring around Mackenzie Fierceton supportively since the publication. Their opinions or reactionary feelings they have after reading the article are at the expense of low-income students/people or those who grew up in an impoverished environment. In the article, supporters claim that Fierceton is being punished because she wasn’t “poor for long enough”, or making statements that signal she’s “not like other foster care youth”. Throughout her presence in higher education, she played the “low-income” card—a card she seemingly stole from someone else’s deck.
The card served its purpose, so it’s back to respectability. Fierceton’s abusive home life impacted her mental health. She suffered trauma. Being removed from a life, she knew well and entering foster care was a disruption for sure. Despite all of that, she was socialized as a woman of respectability for most of her life. She’s well-spoken and had the resources to mold herself into a stunning poster child of resiliency in foster care.
Mackenzie Fierceton’s narrative was weaved into a tragic tale of abuse and poverty, but she was The American Dream personified. This is what most likely impressed the University of Pennsylvania. Despite what they assumed about her tragic tale, she was the girl next door. Her blonde hair, well-manicured appearance, and distinctive smile made her a more appealing foster care statistic. This is why the blue-checked Twitter accounts of respectable society are staunchly standing by Fierceton while exposing their elitist mentality along the way, like a Stanford University professor implied that this situation manifested because “Penn” is one of the “shitty lesser Ivies”.
What To Make of All This?
Hopefully, after reading my perceptions of the public discourse surrounding Mackenzie Fierceton, a person would be able to comprehend that I acknowledge the abuse she faced and didn’t allow her privileged upbringing to cast any doubts. I know some people did just that when the story first broke months ago. I felt adding my familial history as context would emphasize I don’t allow stereotypes about what abusers look like or where people believe it happens to muddle the conclusion I arrive at.
If Mackenzie Fierceton had provided details of her narrative truthfully, she could’ve shattered the misconception that abuse only happens in marginalized households. Moreover, she could’ve used her story to encourage other abused minors in high-income or privileged households that there’s a way out.
The callous way the University of Pennsylvania acted while investigating Fierceton’s background invalidated the abuse she endured. I want to reiterate that I do find the timing of the investigation suspicious. My views on this situation may appear to be contradictory, but they’re not. Life isn’t black or white, there’s room for grey areas. While I acknowledge that she’s an abuse survivor and experienced trauma, I can’t allow that to excuse her deception.
She centered herself in a narrative that wasn’t her lived experience. The human experience isn’t one size fits all. We all have a story to tell or obstacles we have to overcome. There’s a problem in the academic realm with people co-opting someone else’s lived experience for the means of social capital. This is why when the story first broke, I sighed out loud. Indeed, there was so much left out of Mackenzie Fierceton’s story when she first became scrutinized, but the fact remains that she embellished aspects of her lived experience. Definitions were tweaked to make it appear she didn’t.
I want to dedicate my response to The New Yorker article and the situation as a whole to Ma’Khia Bryant. She was a Black foster care youth gunned down by the Columbus Police Department. She was failed by so many people and the entities who employ them. The police officer who shot her was exonerated in March 2022. For some reason, I thought of her throughout this writing exercise.
