An article posted early in this thread stated that the police & family services were had dealt with earlier matters with this family. (I cannot find the portion about prior contact with Family Services and I do not have enough time now to keep searching.)
Please read the “Pillow Talk” article that I posted early on in this thread. It is lengthy, but reveals some conflicts of interest which affect Penn’s narrative. Also, two Penn profs wrote that the young lady never hid the facts about her background & upbringing. The Penn profs are furious at UPenn for the actions taken against this young lady. Penn even violated its own policies when interrogating the young lady without any representation.
The “Pillow Talk” article is long & somewhat disjointed, but well worth reading.
for me, i’m trying hard to see this all through a different light than what i’ve seen with a long-time friend and her kid. But that’s often hard, when views are slanted one way already.
SO: a friend’s kid has had absolutely no contact for 5 years with her, due the strict upbringing, money arguments, and disapproval of choices that were made in high school. The mom is absolutely grieving; kid is relentless in backing down. The two points of view are radically different.
I’m very thankful i know of no kids who are physical abuse victims.
Friend’s case is probably nothing like this case. but i can’t help but see this all from a few different angles.
(guess the root of what i’m trying to convey is that i’ve seen a youth walk away from family; have not seen family do that to youth. Is the tie between mother>kid stronger than kid to mother? my heart aches at the thought of losing my mom; but doubly aches at the thought of losing a kid. so it makes me wonder if more of this situation is on the kid. ??)
I have a friend who practices family law and spend an hour with her and you will get the need for your “different angle” approach. Kudos to you for recognizing this.
She has been appointed guardian ad litem for kids in families who are pillars of the community, loving and invested parents on the outside, able to escape scrutiny for a very long time even in situations of clear abuse. Money does that. Being a professional does that. You’ve got mandated reporters who see Monday morning bruises and kids insisting that they fell off their bike, were clumsy, fell down stairs, etc. So most teachers don’t report-- after all, dad’s a lawyer! Mom runs a hedge fund!
At some point kid breaks an arm- the Xray shows repeated (and untreated) fractures. Kids got several broken teeth. Etc. You can fill in the blanks.
Lots of sides. My friend is now representing a minor child whose parents are divorcing and neither of them want custody. Dad wants to start a “new life”. Mom wants a “fresh start”. More money than god. Judge insisted that the kid needed independent legal representation as the parents navigate this holy hell of a divorce.
I wish nothing but the best for this young woman regardless of which side is “right”. Looks to me like everyone’s a loser here.
Actually that is exactly what her lawsuit alleges…
“On January 29, 2020, the lawsuit states, Fierceton, then an undergrad in the final semester of her senior year, “suffered a seizure” while attending a class on campus in the basement of the Caster Building at 3701 Locust Walk.
“Due to the inaccessibility of the Caster Building, and specifically its basement, and the Penn Defendants’ improper emergency protocol, it took more than an hour for emergency personnel to remove [Fierceton] from the building,” the lawsuit states.
“This delay caused [Fierceton’s] condition to further deteriorate, and as such, she was required to be admitted to the neurological intensive care unit for three days at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where she spent a total of five days.”
The nurse who cared for her in the hospital attested to the fact that she did have blood in her hair.
There is nothing ambiguous about Penn’s definition of first gen. She clearly fit that definition as stated. We have no idea what their intent was in creating that definition. Regardless, their intent doesn’t matter with regard to this case or any other. Penn bears the responsibility for their definition, not anyone else.
The girl’s claims against her mother were never invalidated. In fact, those on the scene at the time made a judgment that she be removed to foster care. Years later a judge determined that there was insufficient evidence to maintain the mother, a prominent doctor, on the child abuse registry. That’s a very different thing.
This is one seriously messed-up girl. I feel very sorry for her. Her upbringing surely has something to do with this unless she has some mental condition (I am not saying that she has). We will never know what happened in her childhood.
Based only on the article, I do feel that she misrepresented herself on the Rhode scholarship and master applications. As to the undergraduate essay, embelishments are common.
I thought the lawsuit was brought by another party regarding basement access and this young woman was a supporting witness to prove Penn knew about the problem based on her seizure event?
Yes, all of that was in the lawsuit, but that wasn’t the point of the lawsuit. That was in support of her claim that she was the victim of retaliation by the university.
From the Big Trial article:
“The lawsuit, filed on behalf of MacKenzie Fierceton, claims that Penn officials targeted the grad student for retaliation after she became a key witness in a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the university. . .
“The lawsuit, which does not specify the amount of damages sought, claims retaliation, intentional interference with business relations, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
She is not seeking damages for an injury. She is seeking damages for the loss of her Rhodes scholarship, the withholding of her master’s degree, the threat to rescind her bachelor’s degree, and the associated emotional stress of the smearing of her reputation and the harassment harassment she was subject to.
That’s true but it’s a separate suit. She’s claiming that because of her participation in the Driver lawsuit as a witness that the university has retaliated against her and she is suing in her own lawsuit for damages sustained as a result of that retaliation.
None of us have access to her hospital records, thus can’t draw a conclusion. Those who did have access determined that she did not accurately represent her injuries or background. A whole lot of lawyers participated in that determination.
She likely has unintentionally done herself a lot of harm by choosing to publicize this. She will graduate with a doctorate from Oxford and could have considered academic employment. Given the Chronicle article, employers may keep their distance.
One can expect more vetting from both Penn and the Rhodes trust of their scholarship nominees in the future.
“The Rhodes committee questioned Fierceton about the undergraduate essay she wrote when applying to Penn. In it, she detailed her hospital stay after the alleged incident with her mother, including claims that her hair was “caked with dried blood” and her facial features were “so distorted and swollen that I cannot tell them apart.”
“ The committee concluded that this was “inconsistent with the hospital records”.
2- “Ms. Fierceton identified herself as first gen, based on U Penn’s own definition of first gen, “first in her family to pursue higher educationat an elite institution ” (Your words and I don’t know where her MD Radiologist mother attended but clearly not educationally disadvantaged as is the intent).
In terms of the ambiguity I find their use of the word “elite” as a criteria to be subjective and ambiguous.
Lastly a DA did not pursue charges against the mother and a judge expunged records and the student has filed two law suits (one claiming she was harmed by delays in emergency response and one claiming that Penn is retaliating for the aforementioned).
Not drawing conclusions based on these facts but they are facts.
Plaintiffs and their lawyers detail physical damages and hardships in an attempt to be compensated for those damages. Her lawyers didn’t include those claims and details as a page filler.
You said “she didn’t sue Penn over injuries”? That is clearly one of the allegations she is seeking compensatory damages for. The absence of a stated amount is typical of such claims.
How can you possibly say she isn’t suing based on injury when the claim states…
“This delay caused condition to further deteriorate, and as such, she was required to be admitted to the neurological intensive care unit for three days at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where she spent a total of five days.”
“first in her family to pursue higher educationat an elite institution”
This has been mentioned several times on this thread but note, this is an expansive definition used by a student organization at Penn. Where is the cite to show that this is/was the official definition used by Penn Admissions?
Unfortunately, Penn appears to conflate the issue by referencing the student organization on the Admission’s website.
The other fallout from this story will be to the student’s high school. At expensive private schools, counselors are expected to vet the applications submitted to elite schools. Let’s hope whoever was counselor there 7 years ago has moved on for the sake of the current applicants.
The statement that family services had dealt with earlier matters with this family is from the Chronicle article. In reporting the results of Penn’s own investigation, the article says:
“Investigators did confirm that Fierceton’s family had been visited by child welfare services when she was young.”
Your comment about the two professors is particularly salient. As reported in the Big Trial article, these are not just any random professors. One of those profs, Anne Norton I the Stacey & Henry Jackson President’s Distinguished Chair. She complained that her letter of recommendation for Fierceton had been misrepresented by Winklstein the interim provost - a serious accusation about her own letter.
Also a prominent faculty member, the other prof is Rogers Smith, the Christopher H. Brown Distinguished Professor. He has prior pertinent administrative experience and agreed to be Fierceton’s designated represented in th OSC process. These ar both holders of endowed chairs at the university and are angry enough about how this was handled to be publishing an article about it.
As you mentioned, Fierceton was interrogated by Winkelstein without representation - not Smith, not anyone else - and did so in violation of Penn’s own policies. On procedural grounds alone, this is very serious and undermines the university’s position.
Yes, I was agreeing with you, I think— the allegations about her injuries relative to the seizure appear to be part of another party’s lawsuit against the university, not her own. She is arguing her role in that party’s lawsuit is one reason Penn sought to retaliate against her, correct?
I directly quoted the statement in the article which says what the lawsuit is for and what she is seeking damages for.
You say that injuries are “clearly one of the things she is seeking compensatory damages for.” It isn’t clear to me. You are inferring that unless you can tell me where it actually says what you claim. The injuries were not the result of the retaliation nor they part of the stress that she endured as part of the retaliation. The point of the lawsuit is the retaliation and the resulting harm it did to her.