And while the financial terms will be confidential, plaintiff’s attorney will spin it as a major victory.
3 Likes
Deleted.
Choice may not be up to them.
The choice is not up to Penn as to whether or not this will be tried by a judge or jury as the plaintiff has already requested a jury trial. This is a civil matter.
@roycroftmom may be confusing this civil matter with criminal rules of procedure. In a criminal matter, the defendant can elect to be tried by either a judge or a jury (although in minor cases there may be no option for a jury trial in most jurisdictions).
1 Like
I bet it will go to arbitration. MF doesn’t have years and years to wait to get her MA degree released, and Penn doesn’t want a public hearing on any of this.
1 Like
I read in one of the articles that she had been accepted into the PhD program at Oxford independent of the Rhodes. Don’t know if that’s true, but wouldn’t that be her next step for the immediate future regardless of the progress of the lawsuit?
I suppose if she earns a PhD she can go on with her career without the MA, and the law suit can wind its way through the court system. I still think it will go to arbitration just to speed it along.
If she is successful, it’s going to be hard to determine the value of the lost Rhodes. The cost of the scholarship is easy enough to determine but what is the value of getting to put ‘Rhodes Scholar’ on her resume?
2 Likes
wonder if she will change her name again? Her new name will now be associated with this all.
6 Likes
If she has still gone to Oxford for a funded PhD then any monetary loss is minimal if not zero (perhaps Rhodes is slightly more generous with living allowances, I’m sure there are more free dinners 
).
There’s another investigation by The New Yorker:
How an Ivy League School Turned Against a Student | The New Yorker
5 Likes
That was an absolute hit piece by The New Yorker. I hope they have good attorneys, as they may need them.
2 Likes
They introduced new information. They provided the first coherent narrative of how this case proceeded from MacKenzie’s sophomore year in high school up to the present. It’s well worth the read.
What grounds could Penn possibly have for a lawsuit?
3 Likes
The New Yorker article reports that she is at Oxford studying for her PhD, but it is not funded. One of her Penn professors is paying for it. So there is considerable financial loss.
They presented her side as fact, and not her opinion of it. I think the lawsuit is more likely from her mother than Penn.
Someone commented above that Penn seemed to have discussed the situation with her mother, aunt and others in St. Louis. I see that as a problem if they didn’t have her release, and I doubt she signed a release.
‘Somebody’ from St. Louis sent in a letter saying she wasn’t poor, wasn’t raised poor, and had lied. It would have been easier for Penn to say “thanks, we’ll look into it” and then actually investigated. By their definition, she was poor AT THE TIME she enrolled, which is what mattered for federal FA and for their definition of FGLI.
1 Like
I don’t think anyone is arguing that she wasn’t entitled to federal FA. It’s about whether she was honest with the Rhodes committee, and even in this one sided account she admits she “took some liberties” in the application. That’s certainly enough for the Rhodes committee to be in the clear in deciding to withdraw the scholarship, so it sounds like this is devolving into a public vendetta against her mother. I have a hard time seeing a settlement with Penn where they do much more than release her degree and maybe pay her legal fees.
2 Likes
It is never an issue to ask for information, only possible duty to confidentiality is on those who disclose info. The mother and classmates obviously had no such duty, and it is likely Penn relied upon publicly available info from the others.
1 Like
I don’t think Penn had the right to even disclose she went to school there or to discuss anything about her attendance with those third parties. Yes, it’s public info in the paper that she attended, that she won the Rhodes scholarship,but the essays she used for admissions and anything in her files is not public info. IMO, the school needs a release to discuss anything.
1 Like
She likely would have signed one as a condition of her Rhodes. There is nothing to indicate Penn released any info; it sounds like they were in “receive” mode. Actually, it would have been negligent of Penn not to investigate once they were informed by credible parties of potential fraud
1 Like
I agree they could talk to the Rhodes committee. It’s the mother and aunt in St. Louis I have a problem with. It sounded like Penn had a long discussion with the mother and aunt, and even gave info for the mother’s hearing to have her record expunged.
Look, she wrote admissions essays saying she was poor, that she had a miserable childhood. That was her opinion and a picture of her smiling while on a horse at age 8 can’t disprove that. They were HER feelings. Kids have no idea how much things cost and maybe her parents were always fighting over money so she thought she was poor. Many kids write college essays that would have many of us rolling our eyes over the emotional toil they experienced. Lost the big game, couldn’t go to Spain when ALL their friends did, wasn’t picked for Student Council or Val? To some these really are devastating events, to others just something to write about for the essay. Two kids can experience the same thing in vastly different emotional ways. The time to investigate was before they admitted her, not 6 years later when they decided she exaggerated. Even the Rhodes committee should have accepted the records or reject her. I don’t see where she lied to the Rhodes committee.
Penn ‘bought’ it when M applied. The things she wrote about were her feelings, impressions, experiences. If others interpret them differently (the letter writers from St. Louis), so be it, but they weren’t on the admissions committee so their opinions didn’t matter… SHE wrote of her impressions, and the Penn admissions committee liked her essays and accepted her. I think the threats to withhold diplomas are ridiculous. She’ll have a PhD but no BA or MA? That’s just silly to pretend those 6 years of education didn’t exist. They admit she completed the work.
I do think some of Penn’s actions are because of the investigations over the seizure and those events.
2 Likes