I had not bought a paper issue of The New Yorker from a newstand for ages, possibly decades, so I jumped on the opportunity on my way back from Rutgers! This April 4 issue contained several impressive articles, which I read over the following weeks. (As I discovered during the lockdown, one issue a week is too much material, even during lockdown!) The most moving one is about Mackenzie Fierceton, a brilliant Penn University graduate, who escaped familial abuse to purse sociology studies at Penn, to the point of receiving a most notorious Rhodes scholarship in 2021 to start a PhD in social policy at the University of Oxford. Only for the scholarship to be rescinded by the Rhodes Trust, after action from Penn. While I cannot judge of the facts and arguments based on this sole article (which 12 pages are definitely impressive in their detail and careful depictions of the whole story), the corporate-damage-control attitude of Penn in this affair is appalling. And revealing of a awfully biased perception of abuse and psychological damage being limited to low-income classes. All the best to this student, in the pursuit of her studies and ideals.
