It was shortly thereafter that the couple entered the rarest lore of high-tech start-ups. You describe an experience, Winkelstein said. In the tweet, she added in a parenthetical: (Note my Medium account is under my new last name changed back to middle name I grew up with, after my grandfather Scott. She was listed alongside the graduating seniors in the class of 1987 yearbook, and where their colleges were named it said merely that she was bound for England. She met with the associate director of special services within Penns Division of Public Safety to share her fear that her family had discovered where she lived. That same year, her mother made headlines in the local papers fighting to save neighborhood trees threatened by Dutch elm disease. ), Logan said that her lawyers did not want her to talk with me. It says that your hair is caked with dried blood. That didnt happen, did it?. and not another? WebView the profiles of professionals named "Mackenzie Morrison" on LinkedIn. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/business/mackenzie-scott-charity.html, Illustration by Israel G. Vargas; Photo: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic. Although all criminal charges against Morrison had been dropped, the D.S.S., which has its own procedures for assessing guilt, substantiated Mackenzies allegations. In a press release, Gutmann expressed pride that the award had gone to a first-generation low-income student and a former foster youth. After the announcement, Wendy Ruderman, a reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer, interviewed Mackenzie for roughly twenty-five minutes. It just seems like, if nothing else, Mackenzie's father might have been able to corroborate her story because Cindy may very well have been abusive to him too. WebDecember 13, 1928. Its, like, Youre not giving us the right sob story of what it means to be poor. The university is so focussed on what box she checked, and not the conditionsher lack of access to the material, emotional, and social resources of a familythat made her identify with that box. He went on, Colleges are in such a rush to celebrate their first Black, their first First Gen for achievements, but do they actually care about the student? When White learned that Mackenzie had been telling professors that she felt the university was threatening her, she added a new requirement. Yet the more she avoided the spotlight, the more it seemed to find her. Amazon was Mr. Bezos dream, and Ms. Scott did not give up on her own dream of writing novels. 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. ), On Medium, she was writing in the language of equity and social justice, guiding philosophies for her giving. By most measures the worlds largest charitable foundation, Gates made those grants with a staff of over 1,700 employees. Three days later, on Dec. 18, 2020, the change of her last name to Scott was legal and official, according to court records from Bellevue, Wash. 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. Korzen was magnetic a master storyteller who could make a roomful of people laugh. It is a deliberate indifference to evidence. Smith and Hillier signed the grievance, too. notifying her that the university had requested an investigation because of concerns that you misrepresented and/or embellished your background. She was supposed to receive her social-work degree the following month, but the letter said that her records would automatically be placed on hold until this matter is resolved., Norton asked Rogers Smith, a colleague in the political-science department, if he would serve as Mackenzies adviser for the disciplinary proceedings. We would never have believed any of it if we werent living it, she wrote, adding that Mackenzie had directed her masterpiece perfectly. One of Morrisons sisters also wrote White an e-mail, saying that Mackenzie deliberately tried to frame Carrie and planted evidence around the house, including her own blood.. The university offered her a deal: as Raffaele described it to Mackenzie in an e-mail, the university would take no action against your undergraduate degree, if she gave up the Rhodes, along with her Latin honors (shed graduated summa cum laude). Lee informed Mackenzie that the tube was plastic. If there were causes she supported but did not want the world to know about, she could simply choose not to include them in the Medium post. In another letter to Ms. Morrison, she wrote that he hired her based largely on a transcript of your phone recommendation.. In Florida, she threw herself into the community with gusto. When you are in foster care, your legal guardian is the state, Mackenzie responded, according to the reconstruction. student organization. Thats what scares me about this case. Gutmann more than doubled the number of Penn students from low-income and first-generation families, her faculty biography explains. As you revise, I am at your service if, and only if, you want me to be, Ms. Morrison had written in a three-page typed letter of suggestions for her manuscript, a copy of which is in her archive at Princeton. You start to think that maybe you had it wrong and that maybe it actually did happen the way that they say it did, she wrote. 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. 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. I was young, and I didnt know how you support somebody whose family is going through a hard time.. 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. Since Mr. Bezos and Ms. Scott joined the board, tax records show, the foundation has given away more than $300 million. She imagined that starting over would be the easiest thing b/c I wasnt leaving behind a regular family like so many others, she wrote in her journal, two weeks after arriving at Penn. Mackenzie Morrison, 31, says she felt drawn to Korzen the moment they first met at a charity event. Now a Nobel laureate, Ms. Morrison connected her own powerful agent, Amanda Urban, with her mentee and even gave her a coveted blurb for the cover of the book. 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 explained she was helping her daughter remove gum from hair when She was ashamed to tell people that shed been in foster care; she felt so alone that she thought about dropping out. 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. In April, 2021, an investigative subcommittee for the Rhodes Trust issued a report recommending that Mackenzies scholarship be rescinded. Dr. Morrison was arrested at the time but the case was dropped by prosecutors who said they could never prove Mackenzies claims. What happened after that? Winkelstein asked. Ms. Scott made cold calls and assembled an informal group of advisers. In a 2003 ruling regarding race-conscious admissions at the University of Michigan Law School, the Supreme Court narrowly upheld affirmative action but wrote that the practice should not continue indefinitely. Bet the daughter is an entitled brat, one said. Before leaving, the caseworker, who was white, explained that she didnt really need anything else from us and she was sorry to bother us, but was glad everything worked out, Mackenzie wrote. She had become important with no black-tie fund-raisers and no velvet dresses. During conversations with her mother in the kitchen, she made sure to keep the kitchen island in between us, while also bracing for impact. She thought about running away, but she didnt have anywhere to go. At Mackenzies request, Penn had not listed her contact information in its online directory. The D.S.S. 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. Smith said, I was, like, Youve got to be kidding me. She, Norton, and Harrold sat down for family meals, but Mackenzie almost never had people over; when she did, she hosted them on the front porch. She started writing a journal about her life with her mother and her boyfriend, Last June, Ms. Scott announced another round of giving, $2.7 billion this time. Some of those approaches were from staff at the influential nonprofit consultancy Bridgespan, others from representatives at Lost Horse. 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. Mackenzie told me, I wish I had taken more time to precisely describe the nuances of their livesit was a simplification of a complex story., A letter of endorsement from Penn, signed by Beth Winkelstein, the deputy provost, said that Mackenzie understands what it is like to be an at-risk youth, and she is determined to re-make the systems that block rather than facilitate success., The sixteen-year tenure of Penns president, Amy Gutmann, had been defined by her efforts to position Penn as a school that addressed inequality rather than perpetuating ita pivot that many lite universities have attempted. 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. In August, 2020, Logan filed a lawsuit, asserting that her husbands death was owing to system-wide logistical and structural failures created by the negligence and recklessness of the university. A man who appeared to be a security guard at an address linked to another shell company in an affluent corner of Seattle said, Theyre not available at the moment.. Its a funny thing about the truth. This is not simply a matter of believing survivors or showing a decent deference to a persons understanding of their life experience, she wrote. She just bursts out laughing, Mackenzie wrote. Lisa Smith, the mother of one of Mackenzies best friends at Whitfield, said that her daughter once asked why Mackenzie was always injured: My daughter kind of looked at me funny, and I looked back at her and said, What are you trying to say?, When Fendell asked Mackenzie about her bruises, Mackenzie offered vague comments about being clumsy. A stockbroker tried to phone Mr. Tuttles company in November 1987 and was told that the family was in Europe for the month, according to the S.E.C. Class of 88: Ill miss being with you, she wrote. CreditIllustration by Israel G. Vargas; Photo: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic. The father of one of Mackenzies high-school peers reached out to a Penn official, to explain that the news coverage about Mackenzie was inaccurate. The pediatrician felt awful for not pushing the issue, Brandt wrote. Shortly before the pandemic hit, the chemistry teacher Dan Jewett took on a delicate, sometimes unpopular task. Dr. Morrison was arrested at the time but the case was dropped by prosecutors who said they could never prove Mackenzies claims. In a deeper sense, her public identity had also changed. Suddenly, a New York cop remembered a long-ago murder. After three weeks at the hospital, Mackenzie was discharged into a foster home. (In a separate interview, Lovelace, who had been the subject of complaints to the police by Morrison and two other women with whom hed been romantically involved, denied ever touching Mackenzie.). Mackenzie Fierceton's mother is a radiologist, and she was raised in an upper-middle-class household. But one young Black lady with dead parents using a multibillion-dollar Ivy League institution feels entirely different than the institution using her., Mackenzie understood that her abuse allegations would be investigated all over again, and she found two lawyers who agreed to help her pro bono. When Smith realized this, he wrote the O.S.C., I am profoundly ashamed of us all. (The university says the O.S.C. Mackenzie Fierceton didnt 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.) I found myself with unpredictable and small chunks of time during which I either collapsed from exhaustion and frustration, or ruminated over the excruciating monotony of making and selling sandwiches, she wrote, and worried about how I might pay my rent with the nickels they gave me in exchange for my ennui.. She was working multiple jobs, and she owned almost no personal or material items, she said. No one wants to offend her, but the choices can appear capricious. She wanted to sever her remaining ties with her biological family, and she hoped a new name would make it harder for her mother to find her. On July 28, 2020, Ms. Scott tweeted a link to a post on the website Medium, where she unveiled the scale of her ambition as a philanthropist. He was known among fellow teachers for giving high-fives to all the faculty members on Friday afternoons. Normal! These stories attract attention, in part because they offer comfort that, at least on occasion, such things happen. She had not seen her mother in private since the day she was hospitalizeda court had ordered family therapy, but Mackenzie was terrifiedand had no financial support from her family. Universities began looking for other ways to encourage diversity. I had bruising around my face, Mackenzie replied. Her gifts were the talk of charitable circles. community or all three. Carrie Morrison Mackenzies biological mother had graduated from college and was a successful doctor. Mackenzie Fierceton was championed as a former foster youth who had overcome an abusive childhood and won a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. It is unclear exactly how big Ms. Scotts own staff is, but it is believed to be a small fraction of the Gates team. 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. You should know that I dont feel I got there, she wrote to Ms. Morrison in 2000. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. 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. She had pledged to give until the safe is empty but her remaining Amazon shares were worth more than at the time of the divorce, the result of a soaring market that fueled further debate over billionaires and income inequality. When Mackenzie initially contemplated applying for the Rhodes Scholarship, she asked Moore and Damianos, the recent Rhodes Scholars, if they thought it would be a problem that she was involved in a wrongful-death lawsuit that a family had filed against Penn. 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. Meet Mother Father and Radiologist Parents Mackenzie Fiercetons mother works as a radiologist and was raised in an upper-middle-class family. She interviewed Drivers classmates about what had happened to him, and she and another student, Kate Schneider, took photographs of the buildings entryways. The next morning, Morrison left the house before seeing her daughters face, she said. She has set about disbursing her enormous fortune with unprecedented speed and directness to frontline charities and nonprofits with a stated emphasis on advancing social justice and combating inequality, all while trying to keep herself out of the spotlight. 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