Talk:Mackenzie Fierceton

Category
Minor thing, but per article text, WP:CATDEF and WP:CATLGBT, should Category:Queer women be there? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:28, 13 June 2022 (UTC)


 * In "Personal life", it is sourced that she identifies as queer. Daniel Case (talk) 18:10, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes. And per linked WP-guidance, that is rather weak content to hang the category on. It's not meant for queer-tagging. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:20, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
 * May not be very relevant for this article, but there is a template at Category:Queer people. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:30, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Tone, content and style issues
The overall tone and style of this article are not presented in a matter-of-fact style. The style is more narrative and dramatic. This does not read like an encyclopedia article. Its tone is close to that of the cited New Yorker article from which much of the source material of this article is drawn. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/04/mackenzie-fierceton-rhodes-scholarship-university-of-pennsylvania. The Gilmore girls reference borrowed from the New Yorker article is inappropriate, as mapping people to character archetypes to help the reader see a chosen narrative in the facts is inappropriate. The fact that the pediatrician regretted not examining her bruises is not relevant. This is not Dateline. The goal of a Wikipedia article is not to be compelling or gripping. The bit about the angry mob in the St. Louis Dispatch comments is also irrelevant. The close adherence to chronological order - "That evening", "A week later" reflects the narrative slant of the article about a story unfolding in time. The article needs to be substantially edited in a way that divorces its content, tone and style from that of the New Yorker article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gadget142 (talk • contribs) 00:51, 5 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree to a large extent. I felt at times whilst reading it that I was reading longform journalism of sorts. I have begun editing this article in order to reduce the emotional content, excise irrelevant and dramatic details, and sort out the proper facts and narratives presented by the various sources. It is inappropriate for a Wikipedia article to be written in this manner. The article's goal should not be to bring justice to either Fierceton or her mother (which, I feel that, the article as of now, does not attempt to representatively reconcile the sources in any way, except to create a sort of narrative ambiguity), but to show what the facts are. Dawkin Verbier (talk) 17:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
 * As the primary creator of this article, I would like to ask you could really go with anything more than "narrative ambiguity". Sometimes we are faced with situations where reliable sources writing about a living person produce a great deal of content that favors one side of a narrative over another. Carrie Morrison has not bothered to comment on this story anymore than she's already quoted; we can and do mention that a court cleared her arrest record, the charge was dropped and that she was removed from the state child-abuse registry by a judge who declined to say whether the abuse happened or not, just that the state didn't offer enough to prove it in the absence of a criminal conviction. And we cannot say any more than that; the reader can infer what they like. It is impossible to reconcile the sources without going into OR territory.
 * I am also a little surprised you wrote what you wrote above after having rewritten the intro to focus exclusively on this incident, removing the material in the first graf that recounted the facts of her life leading up to the abuse (alleged or not) and Penn. If you think this should be rewritten to be an article about the controversy, I might be willing to read your arguments. Daniel Case (talk) 23:49, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
 * My primary contention is that the ambiguity is framed in a way that is emotionally charged and narratively layered, not that it exists. As @Gadget142 points out, attention is given to small details for seemingly no reason other than to create suspense. What I had meant by reconciliation was to say that the structure of the article gives rise to the dramatic character of this narrative, instead of summarising and presenting facts in an encyclopaedic way. Don't get me wrong, the article is good, but I think the focus must be cut more to the bone. I'd add that the only reason why she's notable, from the sources, is the controversy in the first place. Dawkin Verbier (talk) 02:13, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * On the rewritten lead, I don't believe that there are any differences in substance than the first one. Almost all the same facts are present; I feel that it's more of a stylistic copyedit, so I'm unsure why you reverted it @Daniel Case. Dawkin Verbier (talk) 02:20, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, to me it was substantive. When I wrote this article as a biography, I believed we had to tell it that way, so the intro would make clear that this was about her and her life, not just what happened with her Rhodes scholarship and why.
 * With the benefit of a year-plus, I can begin to see how maybe the article is more about the controversy and it is hard to establish any notability outside of it (unless you argue that having the Rhodes revoked is enough to make someone notable (has it ever happened to anyone else? I think it might have, but not for a while)).
 * My real problem with reworking the article into one about the controversy is I can't imagine what to call it . But doing so, I think, would address some of the concerns people have raised here ... we wouldn't need to rely on the New Yorker article as much, for one thing. Daniel Case (talk) 03:17, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's contradictory to portray Fierceton's life whilst still acknowledging that the crux of her notability is upon the controversy. I don't think we have to rename the article, because I do think that this is meant to be a biography of her life; at the very least, her activism relating to Black Lives Matter and the wrongful death lawsuits has at least some notability outside of her controversy. Her life until now has been so short that it would be difficult to discuss anything other than the Penn controversy. To use an analogy, it's like if we had a biography of Joe Biden while he was a somewhat newly elected senator. The lead would have to centre about, mostly, his senate race and contributions, and addressing his early life in some detail. Which is what I attempted to do in the new lead, and which I felt the old lead spent too many words focusing upon specific early details, like which high school she was from, etc.
 * In regards to style, one example I take issue with is: "By the end of the interview Fierceton was crying. Her mentor told Licht afterwards that "it felt like an attack on a student" and that she had never experienced anything like it. Fierceton wrote to SP2 dean Sara Bachman complaining about the interview, saying she felt "worthlessness, hopelessness, and shame" for a week afterwards." I feel that this is too long and makes too extensive use of direct quotes, mainly because quotations are done consistently throughout, and in my opinion with little encyclopaedic effect other than to emotionally represent the various individuals involved. I believe that, much of this should be cut down, and made more succinct and encyclopaedic. I would be happy to work on a new lead here and discuss other stylistic aspects. Dawkin Verbier (talk) 04:02, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @Daniel Case
 * My major contentions with the current lead are that:
 * (1) it does not reference the crux of notability of Fierceton (i.e. the scandal) until the fourth paragraph. The second paragraph begins with how she documented the abuse - but being a documenter or communicator of her abuse is not what she is known for. The scandal, preceding events, and subsequent response and lawsuit, as well as her post-scandal activism, are the crux of what a reader wants to know through the lead of this page.
 * (ii) it contains extraneous details about her personal life. Particularly with the reference to the "guardian ad idem", repeated mentions of the high school she went to, who is paying for her Oxford tuition, etc.
 * (iii) the phrasing of some statements are somewhat charged and flamboyant: "Commentators took the university and American elite higher education to task for...", "a sympathetic Penn faculty member paid her Oxford tuition", "Supporters of Fierceton's mother called Mackenzie an emotionally manipulative girl who would injure herself and fabricate abuse indicators to be an appealing candidate for admission to an Ivy League college such as the University of Pennsylvania."
 * How do you feel about this draft, which I feel preserves her "story", whilst cutting down on the excess prose, and still highlighting what Fierceton is known for:
 * Mackenzie Fierceton (born Mackenzie Terrell on August 9, 1997; later Mackenzie Morrison, ) is an American activist and graduate student currently studying at Oxford University. Raised in Chesterfield, Missouri, a West County suburb of St. Louis, she attended and graduated from the Whitfield School in Creve Coeur. She received a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in social work from the University of Pennsylvania (commonly known as Penn), on a full scholarship, through a combined five-year program.
 * Beginning in 2021, Fierceton became embroiled in a scandal with Penn over the representation of her background in her university applications. In her applications to Penn, and later the Rhodes Scholarship, Fierceton stated that she was sexually abused by her mother's boyfriend; was physically abused by her mother to the point of hospitalisation; and had lived in foster care for a number of years. She also identified as a first-generation low-income (FGLI) student due to her lack of financial support, as a result of parental estrangement. An investigation by the Rhodes Trust and Penn concluded that she failed to correct statements and impressions made in her application essays, particularly in regard to the severity of abuse, nature of her upbringing, and duration of foster care. Additionally, Penn threatened to withold Fierceton's degrees, fine her, and refer her to criminal prosecution. She later withdrew from the Rhodes Scholarship, filing suit against Penn for the infliction of emotional distress.
 * Although fellow students and faculty at her high school noticed signs of abuse displayed by Fierceton, her mother denied all allegations and claimed that Fierceton lied for her own personal benefit. She had been hospitalized twice in 2014 for injuries, including concussions and bruised ribs, which she attributes to her mother. After the second stay, which lasted three weeks, state officials placed her in foster care and arrested her mother under child abuse charges, which were later dropped. Missouri state courts later expunged the arrest and removed her mother from the state's child-abuser registry.
 * Penn eventually awarded Fierceton her degrees, but a notation about the investigative finding remains in her transcript. In Fierceton's lawsuit, she alleges that their investigation was done to discredit her as a witness in a wrongful death suit filed against the university which Fierceton instigated. Her supporters at Penn have called for the university's acting provost, Beth Winkelstein, to be held accountable for her role in the investigation, characterizing it as a continuation of her abuse. In early 2022, her struggle with Penn and the Rhodes Trust gained national attention through stories run in The Chronicle of Higher Education and The New Yorker. Commentators criticised the university and American elite higher education to their use of Fierceton and other recent Rhodes recipients as poverty porn, and for their shifting definitions of FGLI students. Dawkin Verbier (talk) 08:15, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with this other than it being one graf longer than INTROLENGTH prescribes. I also feel it's better if, as I am more and more thinking we should, we convert the article from a biography to an account of the controversy. Daniel Case (talk) 05:39, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

April 2024 redrafting of article
I've just performed a major restructuring of the article. I'm explaining my changes here.

I found several problems with the previous version, which other editors also discussed above. These included:


 * The introduction was overly long.
 * The article was excessively detailed and did not succintly summarise the events (insufficently encyclopaedic).
 * Much of the content was paraphrased from the New Yorker article, and presented in the same order.
 * This contributed to the excessive level of detail and gave the appearance of OR (it's not necessarily, because it was just repeating the thesis of the NYer, but it looked like it).
 * The amount of text in the footnotes was excessive (1,900 words, or 20% of the article wordcount).
 * The use of footnotes felt like it was to give the impression of blow-by-blow responses to the New Yorker article. The whole juxtaposition--repeating the NYer whole cloth then Penn's responses in footnotes--begins to stray into OR.

Overall the article should be an encyclopaedic summary of events based on sources. Given this is a BLP I felt extra care was warrented, especially over presenting allegations and counter-allegations of abuse, injury, and ongoing legal action in a neutral way. Therefore, I have been bold and implemented the following changes:

I have overhauled the article to be much more succint, removing extraneous detail (interested readers are welcome to go to the sources for a greater level of detail than they would get in an encyclopaedia entry), and reordered events into a chronology (previously the sections followed the dramatic-reveal style of the new yorker article, covering the wrongful death lawsuit out of order).

I have removed all the footnotes. Where relevant I have incorporated them into the text, but most were to too high a level of detail.

I brought together a new section from media coverage section on the debates enkindled in the press re FGLI and poverty porn. There may be some work still needed on this section. It is probably still relevant as the ensuing debate is probably a large part of this article is notable.

Overall I have tried to be cautious and neutral with descriptions of the controvers(y/ies) and follow the guidance from WP:BLPSTYLE. JCrue (talk) 14:46, 2 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Please remember to use American English when writing about an American subject. Americans do not "read" subjects in college; we major in them. Daniel Case (talk) 04:24, 3 April 2024 (UTC)