CreditIllustration by Israel G. Vargas; Photo: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic. In it she seemed to address the contradictory urges of preserving privacy while commanding attention for the causes she supported. In another letter to Ms. Morrison, she wrote that he hired her based largely on a transcript of your phone recommendation.. One of Mackenzies tenth-grade teachers shared that Mackenzie was afraid to talk about her home life, so the teacher had begun asking her if the weekend had been cloudy or stormy. Fendell, the wellness director, said that she had seen text messages in which Morrison had lashed out at Mackenzie, calling her a fucking piece of shit or telling her, Get your fat ass home. Brandt also spoke with Mackenzies pediatrician, who felt guilty that, at Mackenzies annual physical a month earlier, she hadnt X-rayed a large bruise on Mackenzies arm. In the winter of her sophomore year of high school, Mackenzie Morrison sat in her bedroom closet and began a new diary. Both her parents had recently died, and she was going through a severe depression, but, she told me, Penn dragged me to every single news outlet that asked for an interview and sent a Penn communications person with me to make sure I said the right things. 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.. Dr. Morrison was arrested at the time but the case was dropped by prosecutors who said they could never prove Mackenzies claims. students, and, though she didnt attend the program, she began going to events hosted by Penn First, an F.G.L.I. Forbes in January calculated that he had paid out $2.1 billion in charitable giving so far. Schneider told me, We wanted to document everything, because we were, like, This is a pattern. After Lovelace bought Morrison a gun for her birthday, Mackenzie wrote, If Im being perfectly honest, Im terrified. She described an incident, a year earlier, when she had fallen asleep watching a movie in her moms bed and woke up to Lovelace on top of her, feeling my boobs, running his hand around my inner thighs & exploring other places. She got out from under him, ran into her own room, and eventually called her mother, who wasnt home, and related what had happened. Mackenzie told the hospital staff that she didnt remember what had happened. Ms. Scott was attending the Hotchkiss boarding school in Connecticut, while her older brother was at Georgetown University. FGLI kids can go to private school and/or college preparatory school just as Mackenzie did. I wasnt quite ready to write a book. Universities began looking for other ways to encourage diversity. The acclaimed novelist Toni Morrison was Ms. Scotts mentor at Princeton University. Did I do something wrong to make her not want to?, In her journal, Mackenzie described her mother as having two faces, one manipulative and aggressive, the other nurturing and kind. The Times columnist Nicholas Kristof tweeted the Inquirer article, saying it was thrilling that a Rhodes Scholarship had gone to a first-gen low-income foster youth, and Mackenzie retweeted what he wrote. Good luck, bad luck, its not the way that we really need to look at things, she told the television host Charlie Rose in 2013, after relating the parable to him. Mackenzie stayed at school late that night, rehearsing for a musical. Their gift was incredibly consequential, said Zach Silk, campaign manager of Washington United for Marriage, completely changing the scale of what had been a pretty scrappy but somewhat underfunded effort. The couple, who had been together since they were both 14, found themselves becoming teen parents not once, but twice over. Critics complained that she had retreated into less transparency rather than share more information, as nonprofit governance experts had called for. After the caseworkers visit, Mackenzie was on high alert, trying not to set anyone or anything off, she wrote in her diary. Trailing behind their car was Mackenzie's father Matthew, who drove up and saw the wrecked car after being hit multiple times and rolling before coming to a stop on it's side. Its just difficult to describe what its like to go through the world feeling like you dont have some sort of anchor., Mackenzie moved around Nortons house lightly and with deference. The administrative ruling was first reported by Medium Marker. Mr. Sloan was a rigorous writing instructor who asked for weekly compositions from his pupils. Perhaps her access to privilege helped her understand, in a way that other disadvantaged students might not, the ways that lite institutions valorize certain kinds of identities. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. to express grave concerns that Mackenzie would not be protected there. I didnt even know what to make of it. She wrote to the dean of the social-work school with a list of concerns, including the appearance of retaliation against Mackenzie for giving a deposition in wrongful death lawsuit against the University. (The university has denied that its dealings with Mackenzie had anything to do with the lawsuit. At one point, as she approaches the bodyguards car, Jessica thinks, She will not try to influence this womans opinion. She just bursts out laughing, Mackenzie wrote. 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. Or even to write everything down in here. Morrisons name was entered into a state registry for perpetrators of abuse and neglect. Or the propaganda campaign that they can put behind her story?. The Giving Pledge is a public promise and little more. And as a recent college graduate, working in recruitment at a financial firm, she married the man in the office next to hers, Jeff Bezos, and moved to Seattle to help him pursue his dream of an online retail empire one that would make each of them among the wealthiest people in the world even after their marriage dissolved. Instead, The New York Times relied on interviews with more than two dozen friends, teachers, former colleagues and acquaintances from every chapter of her life, as well as public records and the rare interviews Ms. Scott has given, generally in conjunction with the publication of one of her novels. Last year, Ms. Scott recalled that period and the help she received to make it through. Rhodes Scholar claimed she grew up poor and abusedthen her story started to unravel, the New York Post wrote. If this was a difficult period for Ms. Scott, it was also an intellectually rewarding one. She described the one who almost killed me. Still, it was a significant statement. 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. Penn seemed to embrace Mackenzies story as evidence of its commitment to promoting social and economic mobility. Mackenzes mother, Dr Carrie Morrison, a radiologist She said that she was usually glad not to have to line edit for a living anymore. Join Facebook to connect with Mackenzie Morrison and others you may know. 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). 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. He was not able to provide a direct answer, she later wrote. One question on the application asked, Are you the first generation in your family to attend college? The Web site of Penn First Plus, a university program founded in 2018 to support F.G.L.I. That same year, in September, Mr. Bezos and Ms. Scott pledged $2 billion to open Montessori-inspired preschools and support homeless families. I went with the story my mom told me to tell, which is that I was playing with my dogs in the living room and I tripped and fell into a table, she wrote in her journal. Then she grabbed Brandts hand and asked her to keep Morrison out of the hospital room. She interviewed Drivers classmates about what had happened to him, and she and another student, Kate Schneider, took photographs of the buildings entryways. It was Ms. Scott. In her final year, she took on extra coursework, completing a special seminar in fiction-writing arranged by the head of the English department that ensured she met the schools four-year English requirement. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/business/mackenzie-scott-charity.html, Illustration by Israel G. Vargas; Photo: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic. I had so much anger and grief, and I didnt want them to be affiliated in any way with this new life I was building, she said. Morrison has a record of 20 If trauma creates a kind of narrative void, Mackenzie seemed to respond by leaning into a narrative that made her life feel more coherent, fitting into boxes that people want to reward. So, so wrong. Some of her high-school teachers had reassured her that she was part of their familytheir bonus child. But they stopped calling. What HBOs Chernobyl got right, and what it got terribly wrong. Shortly after a reporter appeared at those addresses seeking comment last month, Ms. Scott published her latest missive on Medium, announcing another $3.86 billion in gifts, and returning to her practice of noting the total dollar value of her gifts. Her degree will not be granted until she submits a letter of apology, a requirement imposed by an appeals panel. It is seven years later, and I am still having to prove and prove and prove what has happened to me., Anea Moore, who helped found Penn First, wrote the Rhodes Trust a letter about Mackenzie. She has become arguably the most consequential philanthropist in the world right now one who is very much operating on her own terms. 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.. Morrisons trial was held during the spring of Mackenzies junior year. At an alumni event in the Bay Area in late January 2020, shortly before the pandemic sent America into lockdown, Mr. Jewett stole the show with his humor and enthusiasm, as the alumni magazine put it, and improbably won the crowd over with a joke about trigonal planar molecules.. In an e-mail, she said that Mackenzie would have to write a statement saying shed agreed to withdraw from the scholarship voluntarily and without pressure., Mackenzie rejected the offer. According to a one-page form signed by a judge, there was no probable cause to believe that the petitioner committed the offense. The arrest had been based on false information., Once the charges were dropped, Mackenzies Spanish teacher, Catalina Martinez, sensed that community sentiment toward Mackenzie had shifted. Karen Weise contributed reporting. I personally believe the education level (or/and financial status) of the biological parents would be irrelevant, the associate director responded. Mackenzie appealed the decision, arguing that the first-generation question had not felt straightforward. When I founded Penn First, it was for students just like her, and her membership and leadership in the club was welcomed with open arms, she explained. He was informing friends, he told them at the time, because the news was about to come out in the tabloids. Mackenzie told me, I have heard people describe sexual assault as a kind of erasure of self, but she said that, because her abuse occurred when she was so young, it felt like there was not a self to begin with.. 2023 Cond Nast. On a recent morning no one answered the door or the phone. Her room, on the third floor, was mostly bare, though she had hung seventeen photographs, mostly of college friends. The next morning, Morrison left the house before seeing her daughters face, she said. 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. 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.. At Mackenzies request, Penn had not listed her contact information in its online directory. The following year they gave $2.5 million in support of a same-sex marriage referendum. For comparison, the Gates Foundation said it paid out $5.8 billion in grants in 2020, the most recent year for which complete data is available. Though the Trust said that Mackenzies abuse allegations were beyond the scope of its investigation, it repeated an argument originally advanced by Morrisons lawyer at trial: that there were discrepancies between Mackenzies medical records and an essay shed written to get into collegeevidence, it said, of a broader pattern of misrepresentation. When you are in foster care, your legal guardian is the state, Mackenzie responded, according to the reconstruction. ), After investigating Mackenzie for more than three months, the O.S.C. Ad Choices. Ms. Scott found herself juggling waiting tables and writing, staying for a stint in the New York City apartment belonging to the family of her friend from Hotchkiss, Ms. Bass. Investigate Cardiologist MD Carrie Morrisons Child Abuse Case Yet, I was wrong. 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.. Luther asks Liz if her life with no black-tie fund-raisers. Probably not., She was interviewed for the hedge-fund job by a fellow Princeton grad, Jeffrey Preston Bezos. She gave with few strings attached. What happened after that? Winkelstein asked. In 2014, A 17-year-old Mackenzie told police that her mother pushed her down stairs and struck her at their four bedroom, $750,000 suburban home. After graduation, Ms. Scott went back to Hotchkiss and taught a summer creative writing program. 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. And why would an Ivy League school say, O.K., youve been abusedwere going to let you in. Thats not even a thing.. But after a big launch, the site seemed to fizzle. She showed up at my classroom door with a bloodied and battered face and then fainted, the teacher wrote. In Florida, she threw herself into the community with gusto. All rights reserved. You never know where its going to end up. Its an interesting business, and, on the whole, having a part-time job has been good for my writing., But she also started taking a writing seminar at the University of Washington. Friends remembered the couple as fun loving, big on books but also other forms of culture. ), Three of the people who had written Mackenzie recommendations for the Rhodes composed new letters affirming that she had never misrepresented her life to them. She finished a draft of her first novel as her due date for their first child approached. How an unemployed blogger confirmed that Syria had used chemical weapons. In talking about her childhood, Mackenzie was fragile, sometimes narrowly avoiding tears, but when she reflected on how her life intersected with her political ideals she became focussed and self-possessed. She wrote that Mackenzie, in her application, had failed to acknowledge her upper middle-class upbringing and provides a description of a life of abuse that the judicial process concluded could not be substantiated. Winkelstein attached orders showing that a circuit court had reversed the D.S.S.s finding of abuse, and that Morrisons arrest had been expunged. Last June, Ms. Scott announced another round of giving, $2.7 billion this time. Lisa Smith, her friends mother, recalled that, whenever Mackenzie stayed at her house, she would meticulously clean stuff. (A former classmate had also sent an anonymous e-mail to Penns news office.) One of young MacKenzies own first public appearances was with her fourth-grade class in December 1979 at a Ross Town Council meeting, where she presented a class project to raise money to plant a new tree. Morrison challenged this decision, but the Missouri Child Abuse and Neglect Review Board, an independent panel appointed by the governor, upheld the finding. These stories attract attention, in part because they offer comfort that, at least on occasion, such things happen. Shes pretty much invincible. Mackenzie felt certain that, if she shared details about her mom or Lovelace, her mother would convince people that she was lying, or crazy. I had bruising around my face, Mackenzie replied. There are 30+ professionals named "Mackenzie Morrison", who use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas, and opportunities. 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. She worked on a toy drive for the children of farmworkers and on fund-raisers for breast cancer. Brandt wrote, The only thing she can think is Mackenzie did this to herself. When Brandt asked why Mackenzie would accuse her of such a thing, Morrison replied, I guess she has more problems than I thought. Brandt placed Morrison under arrest. Nonprofits soon began receiving calls and emails about enormous grants from an anonymous donor, often the biggest donation in the groups history or the equivalent of a full years budget. Nevertheless, Raffaele encouraged her not to take any risks. According to her classmates, she was unconscious and intermittently seizing for roughly an hour, because it took emergency medical personnel that long to extract her from the building, as they struggled to fit a stretcher into the elevator or the stairway. Husband of Private. Waitressing was hard, and something was not clicking yet with her goal of writing a novel. We want to salute our veterans and show them the respect and gratitude that they deserve, Ms. Tuttle told the Palm Beach Daily News, four years after the bankruptcy filing. Her own life has taken sharp turns that have shaped her choices, including her extraordinary leap into philanthropy, which in under three years has exceeded $12 billion in grants. Brandt read Mackenzies diary and interviewed her principal, her soccer coach, and her teachers. She was no longer seen publicly as Jeff Bezos ex-wife first. Korzen was magnetic a master storyteller who could make a roomful of people laugh. Anyone can read what you share. After Morrisons arrest, St.Lukes announced that it no longer employed her, but within a year she had been granted privileges by another local hospital. She cries, she doesnt eat, she doesnt sleep. No girls in velvet dresses, was disappointing. The story was quickly picked up by other news outlets. When Smith realized this, he wrote the O.S.C., I am profoundly ashamed of us all. (The university says the O.S.C. Smith was hoping that the panellists would consider how Penns F.G.L.I. The court agreed to hold a trial reviewing the evidence against her. Dr. Espelage said she advised Ms. Scott to draw on real stories and engage celebrities as ambassadors. (Penn denies that there are accessibility problems with the Caster Building which contributed to Mackenzies medical emergency or to Drivers death.). Following that, her scholarship was forfeited and she lost her place in school. Scott was her grandfather. Mackenzie testified that her mother had pushed her down the stairs and that, after she had fallen, my mom was on top of me and she was striking me in the face. One of the next things she remembers is waking up in her bedroom early the next morning. No one wants to offend her, but the choices can appear capricious. El-Fahmawi told me, I was genuinely worried and surprisedshe was completely on her own., During her sophomore year, Mackenzie decided to apply for a masters at Penns school of social workshe could begin the program while completing her undergraduate degreebecause she wanted to help young people who had aged out of foster care. But, she said, I think they didnt want to make our school look bad, like we had missed anything when Mackenzie was with us. (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.). The kind of philanthropy portrayed in The Testing of Luther Albright resembles the sort practiced by her mother, Holiday Tuttle. Walter Licht, the faculty director of the program, described Mackenzie as the sort of student who asks a question that makes everyone stop and brings the quality of conversation to a different pitch. The Civic Scholars were encouraged to analyze how their identities intersected with systems of oppression and privilege. I had that feeling of stage fright before a firing squad for my first reading.. She had become estranged from her father, a former soap-opera actor, against whom her mother had filed an order of protection, alleging that he posed a physical threat to Mackenzie; a guardian ad litem had been appointed to protect Mackenzies interests during the custody proceedings, which were prolonged and bitter. Classmates at Hotchkiss said they remembered Ms. Scott as disciplined about her work, gentle with others and humble in her manner. I wish that I had the courage to tell someone. Mackenzie Fierceton's mother is a radiologist, and she was raised in an upper-middle-class household. Her grandfather had graduated from college. She mentioned in her application that she was hospitalized after her mother pushed her through the staircase. 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. Mackenzie had been an organizer on campus for a variety of causesshe advocated for the university to defund campus police and to reimburse public schools for unpaid property taxesbut in the months before she applied for the Rhodes she had been involved in a more straightforward matter: improving building safety. Amazon was Mr. Bezos dream, and Ms. Scott did not give up on her own dream of writing novels. It felt like such a calculated move to exert power over me, she said. Morrison told the Chronicle in a statement: Mackenzie is Norton wrote a letter to Gutmann, Penns president, warning that the university had been made complicit in a long campaign of continuing abuse. Norton says that Gutmann did not respond. She broke me. She concluded, I was never broken. She had a feeding tube inserted, and was given a diagnosis of post-concussion syndrome. Molly Mudd, a nurse assigned to her case, told me, There was the physical component happening with her head injury, but there was also the emotional component of someone who has been fearful for a long time and has tried to push it down, and all of a sudden it catches up to her. Why one chapter of the Y.M.C.A. Her husband was by then one of the most famous men in America, but he was best known at the time for destabilizing the staid publishing industry to the detriment of local bookstores.

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