She had bruises all over her body in different stages of healingan obvious sign of child abuse.. 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. Her grandfather had graduated from college. programs had affected Mackenzies understanding of the concept of first-generation, but the panel determined that Mackenzie should be disciplinedwith a four-thousand-dollar fine and a notation on her transcript that shed been sanctionedfor misrepresenting herself on her application to the school of social work. She was MacKenzie Scott, the novelist upending philanthropy. The total amount of grants she was announcing came to $1.7 billion. 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. Because Mackenzie had always been kind of trotted out by our school as this shining example of a successful alumna.. 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. Margulis told me, I spent a lot of time meeting with the prosecutor and convincing him that the daughter had no credibility and made all of this up.. and not another? However, an anonymous father reported that she belonged to a rich family and an investigation was put upon her. Ms. Scott, who follows no one on Twitter, and who has given no interviews about her philanthropy, responded to the discussion with another note including a paragraph I wish I hadnt cut from the essay, about releasing more data in the year to come. They learned that, the previous day, the history teacher had called Missouris Child Abuse and Neglect hotline, because Mackenzie had revealed details to her about being sexually abused by Lovelace. But, she said, I think they didnt want to make our school look bad, like we had missed anything when Mackenzie was with us. had considered placing her with one of Morrisons sisters, but the Whitfield principal had called the D.S.S. No matter how hard powerful institutions and people try to manipulate it, it stays the same. Then the University of Pennsylvania accused her of lying. Her degree will not be granted until she submits a letter of apology, a requirement imposed by an appeals panel. In the meantime, an administrative law judge for the S.E.C. There just might be a small part left that loves me in some way, at least I hope., In September, 2014, early in her junior year, Mackenzie drove to school and looked for her history teacher, who had become one of the few people in whom she felt comfortable confiding. Since Mr. Bezos and Ms. Scott joined the board, tax records show, the foundation has given away more than $300 million. The family had an expensive home in the Pacific Heights neighborhood in San Francisco and another house in the town of Ross, what the San Francisco Examiner at the time called the bosky dell in Marin County for the well-to-do., In the afterword to her first novel, Ms. Scott tells the story of how, when she was just 6 years old, she wrote a 142-page novel called The Bookworm, which she described as a chapter book about the adventures of a worm who loved to read., It took me almost a year of afternoons lying on our living room carpet with a stack of Oreos, a sheaf of kindergarten newsprint, and a fat pencil, she wrote, and I distinctly remember the moment when it first occurred to me that I loved writing differently than I loved riding my bike or swimming.. 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. Im finding I have much time to write, all in the early morning, which probably displeases the accountant who lives below me although I recently invested in a rug to muffle my 5 am trips to the kitchen for coffee, she wrote to Ms. Morrison. Three decades after worrying about making rent, and even in the wake of her recent gifts, Ms. Scott, 52, has a net worth that hovers around $50 billion, according to Forbes magazine. There was also a nascent sense in the book of philanthropy as a good. notified Mackenzies lawyer of the decision, writing, I am very saddened by the result in this case as I have always believed Mackenzie 100% on everything and I always will., Morrison declined to speak with me on the record, except to write, Our greatest desire is that Mackenzie chooses to live a happy, healthy, honest and productive life, using her extraordinary gifts for the highest good. Speaking for her side of the family, she added, We will always be here for her., After the trial, Mackenzie decided to change her last name. When Ms. Scotts second novel, Traps, was published in 2013, the extremely private Ms. Scott cracked the door to her life open to the public again to promote her book, sitting for a profile complete with photos by Vogue magazine, meeting the reporter at a Thai restaurant in Bellevue, Wash. Ms. Scott took pains on her publicity tour to demonstrate how normal she was, how she drove a regular Honda minivan when she took their by-then four children to school. She described the one who almost killed me. She had straight blond shoulder-length hair, and her teeth were impeccably white. As you know, shes mentally ill. But heres the thing, Webb said. Mr. Tuttle worked as a financial adviser while his wife stayed home with the kids. (A spokesperson for the Rhodes Trust wrote, Fairness to all our applicants demands that if any issues or allegations arise, we consider them carefully, adding, We provide applicants multiple opportunities to respond, correct inaccuracies and share information.), Mackenzie wanted to submit a response to the Rhodes report, but Raffaele warned that her case could be referred to federal prosecutors, on the ground that she had misrepresented her finances in her application for federal aida possibility that he said White had raised. To be fair, I was using Penn, tooit gave me economic and social capital, Moore said. There were only seventy-one students in Mackenzies grade, and soon everyone seemed to have an opinion about her life. I just remember her being fixated on worry that her mom was going to come into the hospital. At the nurses station, a small picture of Morrison was taped to the wall, so that, if she entered the building, nurses could alert security. She told me that she wished shed pushed back harder on the way she was characterized. There are 30+ professionals named "Mackenzie Morrison", who use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas, and opportunities. In an e-mail, an attorney for the D.S.S. Her preferences are shaping the face of American civil society because of the size of the funding shes providing, said Rob Reich, co-director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at Stanford University. Photograph by Robbie Lawrence for The New Yorker, Heres an apocryphal story that I figure prominently in., Can I help you find anything or prevent you from folding that shirt in such a way that I will immediately have to refold it?, I just hope the world doesnt end before people can see our outfits., Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us. Raffaele was reminded of a line in the space movie Serenity, in which an agent called the Operative advises that, in order to trap a rival, one should leave no ground to go to. Raffaele said it seemed as if Morrison were trying to manufacture a situation in which Mackenzie must go home to her mother, because she has no ground to go toif shes personally ruined., Mackenzies lawyers learned that the university was considering initiating a process in which Mackenzies bachelors degree could be revoked. At one point they paid for 50 friends to take part in a scavenger hunt at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for Mr. Bezos birthday. Norton has tried to create new domestic routinesdoing puzzles; watching rock-climbing movies, a shared interestso that, she said, its not about her fitting into our life. 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. 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. I cannot avoid the sense that Mackenzie is being faulted for not having suffered enough, one of her professors said. Two days after starting the journal, in March, 2014, she wrote an entry about a head injury shed suffered three months earlier. The billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott once recounted, in a television interview, a Chinese folk tale sometimes known as The Lost Horse. The story is about the reversals of fortune a farmer experiences after his prized stallion runs away. Mackenzie went to Whitfield, a private prep school in St. Louis, where the schools wellness director, Ginny Fendell, called her the queen of compartmentalization. She got As, served in student government, played varsity soccer, managed the field-hockey team, and volunteered for the Special Olympics. 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. She started writing a journal about her life with her mother and her boyfriend, Why one chapter of the Y.M.C.A. Gutmann more than doubled the number of Penn students from low-income and first-generation families, her faculty biography explains. She had become important with no black-tie fund-raisers and no velvet dresses. It was their biggest commitment to charity yet and likely among their last as a couple. 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. She described in detail how she had been at the top of her carpeted staircase trying to tease gum out of Mackenzies hair with a comb: She immediately screamed, ow, jerked her head back, and, after stepping back two or three stairs, stomped off to her room and slammed the door. The private Ms. Scott was founder and executive director but appeared to prefer not to serve as the face of the organization, instead letting the stars take center stage. The next morning, Morrison left the house before seeing her daughters face, she said. 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. But as Ms. Scotts fame for giving away money has grown, so, too, has the deluge of appeals for gifts from strangers and old friends alike. Morrison continued, She was falling apart under the academic stresses at school and was exhausted, and I believe looking for an out.. After finishing her second term at Oxford, she had returned to Nortons house for a few weeks. Two days after starting the journal, in March, 2014, she wrote an entry about a head injury she'd suffered three months earlier. 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.. Or the propaganda campaign that they can put behind her story?. He showed ease operating in a world of giving that he would soon come to know far more significantly, and that years annual fund became among the most successful, said the former colleague, who asked not to be named out of concern it could affect employment. Ms. Scott graduated from Hotchkiss, where tuition rivaled the cost of college, after three years instead of four. Commentary was overwhelmingly positive, but philanthropy experts raised significant questions. They asked how Mackenzie had been injured. 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. The number of first-generation students on campus became a new benchmark, a sign that a university was fulfilling its social contract. Mackenzie was crying, and Winkelstein asked again, What happened?, Sobbing, Mackenzie responded, My mom tried to kill me., Winkelstein paused, so that Mackenzie could catch her breath, and then asked, Do you think these documentations were an accurate representation of your experiences?, After the meeting, Walter Licht, the faculty director of the Civic Scholars program, said that the staff memberwho didnt want to use her name, because her job at Penn is not securecalled him distraught. It is unclear exactly how big Ms. Scotts own staff is, but it is believed to be a small fraction of the Gates team. She said it felt like an attack on a student. Licht was disturbed that the conversation appeared to have been provoked by a mother possibly seeking vengeance. (The university has said that Winkelsteins questions were appropriate and that her manner was not aggressive. 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. (A hotline caseworker had notified the police.) community or all three. Dr. Morrison was arrested at the time but the case was dropped by prosecutors who said they could never prove Mackenzies claims. The fathers message was shared with Penns general counsel, Wendy White, who asked to be put in touch with Mackenzies mother. 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.) In a investigators were reviewing e-mails between Mackenzie and Penn faculty, presumably to see if she had portrayed her life accurately; they also interviewed Morrison and the St. Louis prosecutor who dropped her criminal casewithout telling Mackenzie. It quickly became clear, he said, that this was a very unusual process, and my knowledge of standard disciplinary processes was of limited relevance. O.S.C. But I do feel I got to a point well-suited to some perspective-fostering maternity leave and a dose of serious criticism from willing readers., She continued sending drafts to Ms. Morrison, thanking her every time for reading the latest version, and she kept up with a family tradition of sending annual Thanksgiving cards. 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. Mackenzie Fierceton's mother is a radiologist, and she was raised in an upper-middle-class household. 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. She achieved her goal of studying creative writing under Ms. Morrison, who had recently won the Pulitzer Prize. . Morrisons familys roots in the United States go back for generations. She left the company, making appearances at holiday parties and summer picnics, and began working on her fiction full time again. It was bad, she said. As many other working students have found before her (and, with soaring tuition costs, even more since) it wasnt easy. If the U.S. Attorneys Office is getting their information from general counsel at the University of Pennsylvania, he told me, they might act differently based on where they are getting that tip, and there is no quick way out of a federal criminal prosecution.. He was not able to provide a direct answer, she later wrote. chapters, groups that were doing a lot of good on the front lines during the pandemic but not the kind of innovation-focused giving that the Silicon Valley set prioritizes. She felt relieved to be back in Philadelphia, where Norton and a handful of friends and professors constitute what she calls her chosen family. I dont want to be gone from them too long, because then, like, they might move on, she told me. Bill Gates is among its alumni, and Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott are among the parents. Her college counsellor recommended that she apply to universities through a nonprofit, called QuestBridge, that matches exceptional students facing financial challenges with schools that will fully fund their tuition. She put herself out there but not at the public events that, by her own admission, made her uncomfortable, yet using the skill shed been honing since she was eating Oreos and reading botany books: her writing. Anyone can read what you share. Critics complained that she had retreated into less transparency rather than share more information, as nonprofit governance experts had called for. 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. In comments online, the Post-Dispatchs readers seemed almost uniformly outraged at the arrest. 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