An Ivy League Student Accused of Lying About Her Past
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2022
⏱️ 27 minutes
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Summary
Mackenzie Fierceton grew up in a middle-class suburb of St. Louis. Her mother was a doctor, and she attended a prep school. But she was allegedly abused at home, and she ended up in foster care, with no financial support from her family. She won a full scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, and a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford. Then the father of one of Fierceton's high school peers contacted Penn, saying that the news coverage of Fierceton's past was inaccurate. Rachel Aviv, a New Yorker staff writer, joins me to discuss how Fierceton lost her Rhodes Scholarship, and what her story tells us about the internal politics of universities as they seek to diversify their student bodies.
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| 1:10.1 | This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and guests about |
| 1:15.2 | politics. It's Friday, April 1st. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker. |
| 1:22.7 | Mackenzie Firsten grew up in a middle-class suburb of St. Louis. Her mother was a doctor, and she attended a |
| 1:29.0 | prep school. But in her junior year, she revealed to some of her teachers and then the authorities |
| 1:35.1 | that she was being regularly abused by her mother and her mother's boyfriend. She spent her junior |
| 1:41.5 | year of high school in foster care and had no financial support from her family. |
| 1:47.0 | She won a full scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania through a non-profit program for financially precarious youth. |
| 1:55.0 | Fierston excelled at Penn, going on to study for her master's in social work, and she eventually won a Rhodes Scholarship |
| 2:01.7 | to attend the University of Oxford. At that point, the father of one of Feaston's high school |
| 2:07.8 | peers contacted Penn, saying that the news coverage of her past was inaccurate. After interviewing |
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