Karen Weise contributed reporting. So, so wrong. Some of her high-school teachers had reassured her that she was part of their familytheir bonus child. But they stopped calling. The total amount of grants she was announcing came to $1.7 billion. But after a big launch, the site seemed to fizzle. She put herself out there but not at the public events that, by her own admission, made her uncomfortable, yet using the skill shed been honing since she was eating Oreos and reading botany books: her writing. Waitressing was hard, and something was not clicking yet with her goal of writing a novel. In comments online, the Post-Dispatchs readers seemed almost uniformly outraged at the arrest. She explained she was helping her daughter remove gum from hair when She showed up at my classroom door with a bloodied and battered face and then fainted, the teacher wrote. Mackenzie was in an intensive-care unit for three days and was given a diagnosis of epilepsy. If we review your medical records, is it going to show broken ribs and injuries to your facial area?. It felt like such a calculated move to exert power over me, she said. The private Ms. Scott was founder and executive director but appeared to prefer not to serve as the face of the organization, instead letting the stars take center stage. They asked how Mackenzie had been injured. had considered placing her with one of Morrisons sisters, but the Whitfield principal had called the D.S.S. I wish that I had the courage to tell someone. ), On Medium, she was writing in the language of equity and social justice, guiding philosophies for her giving. Using her phone to light the pages, she listed the pros of telling: no more physical/emotional attacks, I get out of this dangerous house, the truth is finally out, I dont have to lie or cover things up. Under cons of telling, she wrote, damaging moms life, could go into foster care, basically I would probably lose everything. After she finished, she loosened the screws of a vent panel on the wall outside her closet and slipped the notebook behind it. When concerns were initially raised about her first-generation status, Mackenzie had e-mailed the associate director of admissions and recruitment at Penns social-work school to ask how former foster youth should answer the question. Morrison denied that she had ever hit her daughter, whom she described as emotional and intense. Winkelstein asked what happened the night before she was hospitalized. In another letter, Mackenzies lawyers argued that she had not constructed a narrative about herself to deceive anyone, but instead had tried to build a new identity after a trauma that had made her question nearly every aspect of her life. It quickly became clear, he said, that this was a very unusual process, and my knowledge of standard disciplinary processes was of limited relevance. O.S.C. She petitioned a circuit court in St. Louis to remove her from the registry, arguing that the boards finding was based on insufficient evidence and would compromise her employment. A spokesperson for his office said that new evidence had been uncovered. . There are 30+ professionals named "Mackenzie Morrison", who use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas, and opportunities. There is currency to a story about a person who comes from nothing and thrives in a prestigious setting. I really dont have words, Mackenzie wrote in an e-mail to a mentor at the Penn Womens Center. Trailing behind their car was Mackenzie's father Matthew, who drove up and saw the wrecked car after being hit multiple times and rolling before coming to a stop on it's side. But then, then theres a writer out there named MacKenzie and the profound pleasure of editing comes rushing back.. A student publication at Oxford declared, A privileged student faked being poor to get into Oxford Uni. A morning radio show, syndicated to some hundred stations in the U.S., named Mackenzie its donkey of the day., Norton felt that Penn was defaming its own student, and in a grievance she accused White and Winkelstein of violating university procedures with arbitrary and capricious conduct. Probably not., She was interviewed for the hedge-fund job by a fellow Princeton grad, Jeffrey Preston Bezos. In 1991, in the celebratory mood after the Persian Gulf war, she was an organizer of the Palm Beach Fourth of July parade. In her applications to college and to social-work school, she had written that, in 2014, she had become a ward of the state once againMackenzie said that she was referring to her involvement in the family-court system as a child but acknowledged that the phrase was confusing. But Im thankful that Mackenzie came forward.. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Logan hadnt known that her husband and emergency responders had allegedly waited for almost an hour together before he was taken away in an ambulancetwelve minutes later, he was declared dead. Bill Gates is among its alumni, and Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott are among the parents. She had meant to say that her team was building a website, the plans for which included a searchable database of gifts.. They had a baby boy at 16 and then got Fendell did not accept the explanation, and she later told Mackenzie that she was legally obligated to notify Missouris Department of Social Services. It was the college roommate who found me crying, and acted on her urge to loan me a thousand dollars to keep me from having to drop out sophomore year.. It was bad, she said. Mr. Bezos and Ms. Scott in 2018, the year before the couple divorced. After Lovelace bought Morrison a gun for her birthday, Mackenzie wrote, If Im being perfectly honest, Im terrified. She described an incident, a year earlier, when she had fallen asleep watching a movie in her moms bed and woke up to Lovelace on top of her, feeling my boobs, running his hand around my inner thighs & exploring other places. She got out from under him, ran into her own room, and eventually called her mother, who wasnt home, and related what had happened. One of Mackenzies professors, Anne Norton, who teaches political science, checked in on students who she suspected might be stranded. In addition to Ms. Tuttles work at boutiques, public records indicate that before the subprime meltdown, Mr. Tuttle was licensed in Florida as a mortgage broker, a real estate broker and assistant appraiser and registered half a dozen shell companies with names like FAMCO Group and REALCO Group. Critics complained that she had retreated into less transparency rather than share more information, as nonprofit governance experts had called for. It was a pretty emotional conversation, because of her fear that, if she did get the scholarship, there would be press, and her bio family could find her and tear her down, Cannon said. A month after beginning the journal, Mackenzie came to school with a black eye. Brandt wrote, The only thing she can think is Mackenzie did this to herself. When Brandt asked why Mackenzie would accuse her of such a thing, Morrison replied, I guess she has more problems than I thought. Brandt placed Morrison under arrest. Her husband was by then one of the most famous men in America, but he was best known at the time for destabilizing the staid publishing industry to the detriment of local bookstores. I felt like a passenger in my own body, she said. He was not able to provide a direct answer, she later wrote. Mackenzie had been an organizer on campus for a variety of causesshe advocated for the university to defund campus police and to reimburse public schools for unpaid property taxesbut in the months before she applied for the Rhodes she had been involved in a more straightforward matter: improving building safety. The next morning, Morrison left the house before seeing her daughters face, she said. I just remember her being fixated on worry that her mom was going to come into the hospital. At the nurses station, a small picture of Morrison was taped to the wall, so that, if she entered the building, nurses could alert security. Who Is Mackenzie Fierceton? Parents and teachers from Whitfield gave her new clothes and school supplies. There was commonality in the fact that a lot of us had different relationships with home or family. When she got into Penn, she said, I had never heard of F.G.L.I., but these labels resonated with a story I was still trying to process., Mackenzie was one of fifteen freshmen selected for Penns Civic Scholars, a program for students committed to social justice and community service. With the help of a scholarship, Ms. Scott still managed to go to Princeton, albeit with a new, heavier burden. Subscribe today ], Her mother was a respected figure in the St. Louis medical community, and, when Mackenzie was injured, she saw doctors affiliated with her hospital. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. It is not clear how the Tuttles revived their fortunes so completely. Morrison petitioned the St. Louis County Circuit Court to expunge her arrest record. No matter how hard powerful institutions and people try to manipulate it, it stays the same. It came as a huge surprise even to many at the school when the news emerged in March 2021 that the billionaire philanthropist and the chemistry teacher had wed a few weeks earlier. Walter Licht, the faculty director of the program, described Mackenzie as the sort of student who asks a question that makes everyone stop and brings the quality of conversation to a different pitch. The Civic Scholars were encouraged to analyze how their identities intersected with systems of oppression and privilege. He could not afford it, she wrote, pretending he had a job that made money and also pretending he could spend it., Ms. Morrison, who died in 2019, called Ms. Scott an extraordinary writer, almost full-blown, and indeed the novella is strikingly assured, as well as a little bloody, macabre and almost Gothic in places. At one point, as she approaches the bodyguards car, Jessica thinks, She will not try to influence this womans opinion. Her mom knocked on the door and told her, Im takingyour keys and Im calling you in sick to school. When Mackenzie heard her mother leave the house, she got a spare key and drove to school, though she had no memory of doing so. She sent the Rhodes Trust medical and family-court records, along with letters from twenty-six people in her life. Did I do something wrong to make her not want to?, In her journal, Mackenzie described her mother as having two faces, one manipulative and aggressive, the other nurturing and kind. Three days after the Inquirer story was published, Morrison wrote White an e-mail, thanking her for the conversation and explaining that Mackenzie has been loved and cherished every moment of her life. She said that when Mackenzie implodedat the time of her hospitalizationshe had just failed the first AP Chem test and was overwhelmed with work load in other classes. (Mackenzie said she didnt fail any chemistry tests; her transcript shows that she earned a B-plus in the class.) While Ms. Scott may be seeking to stay in the background, her funds are reshaping the nonprofit sector in the United States and beyond. She described in detail how she had been at the top of her carpeted staircase trying to tease gum out of Mackenzies hair with a comb: She immediately screamed, ow, jerked her head back, and, after stepping back two or three stairs, stomped off to her room and slammed the door. Brandt later noted that Morrison had not asked how Mackenzie was doing or showed any emotion., Brandt also asked Morrison about the episode, which Mackenzie had reported the day before, when Mackenzie had woken up to Lovelace touching her breasts. 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., Moore, who had been chosen to become a Rhodes Scholar two years earlier, had been surprised to see how her personal story was packaged for the media. Not only did she support his dream, she worked alongside him to build the company. She was tirelessshe seemed to be fighting the worlds fight and really engaged in the struggle for a more just world, he said. During their investigation of Fierceton, Penn's general counsel spoke to "Michael Hayes, the prosecutor in St. Louis who had charged Dr. Morrison with child Im a Black woman, Im middle-aged, Im a single parent of a special-needs child, and I cant do anything that would jeopardize the lawsuit, she said. Another hallmark of Ms. Scotts personality on display in her writing life was her dedication to intense research. But Mackenzies friends and teachers noticed that in her mothers presence Mackenzie physically recoiled. The pediatrician felt awful for not pushing the issue, Brandt wrote. All rights reserved. She started writing a journal about her life with her mother and her boyfriend, Mackenzie told me, I have heard people describe sexual assault as a kind of erasure of self, but she said that, because her abuse occurred when she was so young, it felt like there was not a self to begin with.. 2023 Cond Nast. She was five feet ten with long curly blond hairthe picture of Americana, as one friend described her. Genealogy for James Thomson Morrison (c.1861 - d.) family tree on Geni, with over 230 million profiles of ancestors and living relatives. (Penn denies that there are accessibility problems with the Caster Building which contributed to Mackenzies medical emergency or to Drivers death.). She said many times that she fell for his famously booming laugh and pursued a relationship. And why would an Ivy League school say, O.K., youve been abusedwere going to let you in. Thats not even a thing.. Norton, with whom Mackenzie had been living for nearly a year, told me, I cannot avoid the sense that Mackenzie is being faulted for not having suffered enough. At an alumni event in the Bay Area in late January 2020, shortly before the pandemic sent America into lockdown, Mr. Jewett stole the show with his humor and enthusiasm, as the alumni magazine put it, and improbably won the crowd over with a joke about trigonal planar molecules.. I guess the only way I will find out what will not work for me in life is by trying it, she wrote to Ms. Morrison in September 1992, a few months after graduation and at a pivotal moment for her future. After filling a notebook with lists of surnames that she thought sounded bold (Fairstone, Stronghill, Silverfield), she submitted a petition with the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, changing her name to Mackenzie Fierceton. Dr. Espelage said she advised Ms. Scott to draw on real stories and engage celebrities as ambassadors. The car was a Chevy Blazer, a gift from Mr. Bezos father. Jane Dmochowski, a faculty member at Penn who had become close with Mackenzie and often had her over, said that in the months before the trial Mackenzie got several hang-up calls: She would get so upset, and I never pried and asked who it was, but it was hugely concerning.. She was struck by the way other students relied on their parents, consulting them even about small choices, such as how to phrase an e-mail to a professor. When youve grown up with privilegeand everything around you is pretty and pristine and predictableyour tolerance for anything outside that world isnt very high, Martinez said. Morrison and White spoke on the phone. Mackenzie grew up in St. Louis, Missouri with her mother, Carrie Morrison, left, who allegedly abused her, as her boyfriend, Henry Lovelace Jr., right, sexually abused her Mackenzie attended the $30,000-a-year Whitfield private school in St. Louis A detective named Carrie Brandt had been planning to follow up with Mackenzie at school that day, but instead she came to the hospital. If the U.S. Attorneys Office is getting their information from general counsel at the University of Pennsylvania, he told me, they might act differently based on where they are getting that tip, and there is no quick way out of a federal criminal prosecution.. In college, a loan from a friend helped keep her from dropping out. And we all have enormous energy to devote to helping and protecting those we love.. You have to become a caretaker. Moore didnt think it was right, for instance, that universities commonly closed many dorms and cafeterias during the holidays, leaving vulnerable students feeling displaced. Mackenzies friend Kate Minorini told me, Mackenzies mom was using the Whitfield buzz bookthe school directoryto plead her case, so the rumor mill would have happened regardless, but a lot of the hearsay seemed to be based off the defense arguments of our classmates dad. There were rumors that Mackenzies bruises were self-inflicted, that she had thrown herself down the stairs to get attention. Morrison told the Chronicle in a statement: Mackenzie is She gave overwhelmingly to groups led by women, people of color, members of the L.G.B.T.Q. Mackenzies parents had separated when she was six, and Mackenzie lived with her mother, Carrie Morrison, the director of breast imaging and mammography at When Mackenzie returned to school, she learned that her mother had hired William Margulis, who had sent four children to Whitfield and later served on the schools board of trustees, as her defense attorney. Norton and her partner, Deborah Harrold, live in a large house in northwest Philadelphia. (Her fine was withdrawn, because the universitys charter says that financial restitution cannot be imposed in cases involving academic integrity.) Lisa Smith, the mother of Mackenzies friend, said that Morrison called and tried to be really sweet with me and get me to change my mind about what had happened, but when I said, Im not interested in hearing what you have to say, she got ugly. Once, at the airport, Smith ran into another Whitfield parent, who commented that Mackenzie wanted to go to an Ivy League school, and this was her way in. 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