Her complaint described another Penn studentMackenziewhose medical crisis in the Caster Building had exposed nearly identical problems. Family is not the people you are related to by blood, she wrote. And why would an Ivy League school say, O.K., youve been abusedwere going to let you in. Thats not even a thing.. 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. 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. I felt like a passenger in my own body, she said. She interviewed Drivers classmates about what had happened to him, and she and another student, Kate Schneider, took photographs of the buildings entryways. With Moores permission, her story was put on fund-raising material sent to alumni, and Gutmann summarized Moores life story in a commencement address. He was asked to run a fund-raising campaign at Seattles prestigious Lakeside School, where he taught and which seeks donations from the moderately paid faculty and staff members to a school with assets of $325 million and multiple billionaires in its tightknit community. But she said that Mackenzie concluded, Im going to continue to try to move forward in my life., In a form that Mackenzie submitted to Penn, which formally nominates students for the Rhodes, she described her sense that students applying for scholarships sometimes felt confused and pressured to be someone they were not amidst their application process. In an interview with a writer working on a guidebook for F.G.L.I. The acclaimed novelist Toni Morrison was Ms. Scotts mentor at Princeton University. Many in publishing were resentful. He is the son of the late boxer, Tommy Morrison. She has built a philanthropic operation that is notable not just for the monumental size and speed of its gifts but also for its seemingly impenetrable secrecy. Mr. Jewett was the kind of teacher students appreciated, jovial in manner and serious about his subject. That was when she published a new letter this past December, the one where she opened up about her struggles during college, showed more of herself, but with the headline, No Dollar Signs This Time, which meant both that the symbol $ wasnt used, but also that she did not say how many billions had gone out the door since June. Instead, she gave through the lightly regulated vehicles known as donor-advised funds, which meant she could make massive, tax-deductible donations with no transparency requirements. Mackenzie told the hospital staff that she didnt remember what had happened. 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. The youth should select into the option that provides them access to the most fundingwhich would be to indicate that they are a first-generation college student., Anthony Jack, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who studies low-income and first-generation college students, told me that he would not consider a student like Mackenzie first-generation. Raffaele was reminded of a line in the space movie Serenity, in which an agent called the Operative advises that, in order to trap a rival, one should leave no ground to go to. Raffaele said it seemed as if Morrison were trying to manufacture a situation in which Mackenzie must go home to her mother, because she has no ground to go toif shes personally ruined., Mackenzies lawyers learned that the university was considering initiating a process in which Mackenzies bachelors degree could be revoked. Following that, her scholarship was forfeited and she lost her place in school. She has been in therapy since she went into foster care, and she attributes her capacity to heal, at least to some degree, to her sense of fellowship with other children and women who have not been believed. The Trust determined that, in Mackenzies medical records, there is no reference to dried blood, distorted facial features, or cessation of breathing. The report also pointed to inconsistent descriptions of the length of time Mackenzie had spent in foster care. Dr. Espelage said she advised Ms. Scott to draw on real stories and engage celebrities as ambassadors. She explained she was helping her daughter remove gum from hair when A teacher from Whitfield wrote, While her mother used her wealth to evade conviction, there was never any doubt in my mind that she abused her child and is diabolical in having no remorse. A childhood friend wrote that Mackenzie had confided at the time that her mothers boyfriend would come into her bedroom at night and how her mother would do nothing about it. (Morrison did call the police when he came to their house to show Mackenzie pictures of his new gun. She has given me a real example of a life of passionate devotion to more than one calling.. A small team led by a recent Princeton graduate helped produce video testimonials by a range of public figures, including Monica Lewinsky and the actor Jared Leto. The week before, she had started work at an investment firm, with her future husband, Mr. Bezos. Who Is Mackenzie Fierceton? Rhodes Scholar claimed she grew up poor and abusedthen her story started to unravel, the New York Post wrote. They didnt respond, though Mackenzies biological mother has denied the allegations of abuse. The university, in its response to Mackenzies lawsuit, referred to Mackenzies mother as an accomplished physician and claimed that a court had found her allegations not to be credible. Mackenzie said that her college counsellor had told her that, as an independent student estranged from her family, this information was not required. READ ALSO: Chris Kaba Family: Parents, Wife, Children, Siblings By the early 1990s, her parents had left behind their two houses in California and transplanted themselves to Florida, settling in an apartment building in Palm Beach where at the time units rented for around $800 a month, or roughly $1,500 today. In the hallways she seemed introverted, but would come alive during the classroom discussions, said Jonathan Usuka, who met her during freshman orientation and also studied creative writing. Karen Weise contributed reporting. . 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. When he called again in December the phone number was out of service, and a subsequent letter came back marked Moved Left No Address, according to commission documents. She gave overwhelmingly to groups led by women, people of color, members of the L.G.B.T.Q. Even her new last name, Scott, is one of her own choosing. and had one more year until she completed her M.S.W., to move in. 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.. MacKenzie Bezos and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced that they had finalized the terms of their divorce on Twitter on April 4. All rights reserved. White, upper middle class, and in a position of power, Mackenzies mother was demographically dissimilar to most parents who come to the agencys attention. 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. Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker. Mackenzie Fierceton's mother is a radiologist, and she was raised in an upper-middle-class household. In 2011, Mr. Bezos and Ms. Scott donated $15 million to Princeton for a center to study the brain. She described the one who almost killed me. People Projects Discussions Surnames In November, 2020, the Rhodes Trust named Mackenzie one of thirty-two scholar-elects from the United States. When White learned that Mackenzie had been telling professors that she felt the university was threatening her, she added a new requirement. Fierceton resided in Chesterfield, a rich suburb of St. Louis, with her mother, Carrie Morrison, the director of breast imaging and mammography at St. Luke's Hospital. I had that feeling of stage fright before a firing squad for my first reading.. community or all three. 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. 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. Morrisons trial was held during the spring of Mackenzies junior year. Morrison said that Lovelace had made an innocent mistake. I wanted so deeply for people to understand what it means to not have a family, and I had this fear of people being, like, What happened to youthat doesnt count.. CreditIllustration by Israel G. Vargas; Photo: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic. In 2004, the couple joined the board of the Bezos Family Foundation, a charitable vehicle of Mr. Bezos parents, who became extraordinarily rich in their own right from their early infusions of capital into the fledgling Amazon.com. 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. Within a half hour, police officers arrived at the hospital. and Y.M.C.A. 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. Penn seemed to embrace Mackenzies story as evidence of its commitment to promoting social and economic mobility. Its about trying to construct a common life together. Occasionally, Mackenzie has a painful longing for the mother she remembers as a young child, but it is not her that I am grieving, she said. She said many times that she fell for his famously booming laugh and pursued a relationship. 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 finished a draft of her first novel as her due date for their first child approached. When she visited friends and former teachers, she tried to take up as little space as possible. Norton and her partner, Deborah Harrold, live in a large house in northwest Philadelphia. Norton said, Mackenzie always tried to say, Im fine, Im fineafter she and her roommates gave up their apartment off campus, she lived with a roommates family in Ohio and then stayed at a classmates home in Philadelphiabut eventually it became clear she was just couch-surfing at friends houses, and you cant couch-surf in a pandemic. In late May, Norton invited Mackenzie, who had just graduated with a B.A. Morrison and White spoke on the phone. Investigate Cardiologist MD Carrie Morrisons Child Abuse Case degree. The family had an expensive home in the Pacific Heights neighborhood in San Francisco and another house in the town of Ross, what the San Francisco Examiner at the time called the bosky dell in Marin County for the well-to-do., In the afterword to her first novel, Ms. Scott tells the story of how, when she was just 6 years old, she wrote a 142-page novel called The Bookworm, which she described as a chapter book about the adventures of a worm who loved to read., It took me almost a year of afternoons lying on our living room carpet with a stack of Oreos, a sheaf of kindergarten newsprint, and a fat pencil, she wrote, and I distinctly remember the moment when it first occurred to me that I loved writing differently than I loved riding my bike or swimming.. The pediatrician felt awful for not pushing the issue, Brandt wrote. 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. But Im thankful that Mackenzie came forward.. They liked to imagine themselves as the Gilmore Girls: the single mother and her precocious daughter, so close they were nearly fused. She showed up at my classroom door with a bloodied and battered face and then fainted, the teacher wrote. Ms. Scott was attending the Hotchkiss boarding school in Connecticut, while her older brother was at Georgetown University. Sherry McLain, a nurse assigned to her, told me, She had two black eyes, and her hair was full of blood. had considered placing her with one of Morrisons sisters, but the Whitfield principal had called the D.S.S. Mr. Bezos later said he would find her writing in hotel bathrooms when he woke up on vacation. She was ashamed to tell people that shed been in foster care; she felt so alone that she thought about dropping out. In a psychological evaluation administered by the D.S.S., she was asked to share anything about her life that she wanted others to understand. Im telling my story because I think its a microcosm of how institutions of power can manipulate truth, she told me. She was MacKenzie Scott, the novelist upending philanthropy. Ad Choices. Mr. Jewett lived in a modest house and had separated from his wife in 2018. When we allow stereotype to be our stand-in for disadvantaged groups, we are actually doing them a disservice, he said. She had become important with no black-tie fund-raisers and no velvet dresses. Thats what I tasted, yeah, Mackenzie responded. Brandt demanded an explanation. In the winter of 2020, shed had a seizure in the basement of the Caster Building, where classes in the school of social work were held. Dorothy L. Espelage, a psychologist specializing in bullying prevention, recalled in an interview how she was sitting in a parking lot at the University of Illinois, where she worked at the time, when her phone rang. A privileged child, she left a Connecticut boarding school after her family declared bankruptcy. Morrisons familys roots in the United States go back for generations. Would I have ever considered a job in finance if I hadnt been having those difficulties? she asked. They told the schools how Mackenzie - whose previous name was Mackenzie Morrison - went to the $30,000-a-year Whitfield private school in St. Louis, Missouri. Mackenzie remembered that, two years earlier, a student named Cameron Driver, a thirty-eight-year-old Black man, had had a medical emergency in the Caster basement. In an interview, she described how she, too, had been a first-generation, low-income student.. They rented a house in nearby Bellevue, Wash., where Amazon was founded in the garage in 1994. She started writing a journal about her life with her mother and her boyfriend, Nevertheless, Raffaele encouraged her not to take any risks. She was 23 and he was 29. Meet Mother Father and Radiologist Parents Mackenzie Fiercetons mother works as a radiologist and was raised in an upper-middle-class family. Then, she drove them to Seattle while Mr. Bezos worked on the business plan in the passenger seat. In college, a loan from a friend helped keep her from dropping out. The next morning, Morrison left the house before seeing her daughters face, she said. In April, 2021, six days before Mackenzie gave up the Rhodes Scholarship, she got a letter from Penns Office of Student Conduct (O.S.C.) 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. determined that it was not safe for Mackenzie to return home and placed her in protective custody. 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. She had meant to say that her team was building a website, the plans for which included a searchable database of gifts.. The court agreed to hold a trial reviewing the evidence against her. According to a detailed reconstruction of the conversation, composed by Mackenzie and the staff member soon afterward, Winkelstein asked why, in Mackenzies application for the school of social work, she had categorized herself as first-generation. students, defines first generation broadly, including students who have a strained or limited relationship with a parent who has graduated from college. Given the financial instability of her teenage years, it would have been understandable if Ms. Scott had discouraged him from taking the risk. WebDecember 13, 1928. 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