Christopher Rufo
Christopher Rufo is a documentary filmmaker turned conservative activist who calls himself an investigative journalist, despite the false and misleading nature of many of his accounts.[1] Rufo is well known for his influential campaigns against critical race theory (CRT) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training.[2] He is also an opponent of what he calls “gender ideology” or LGBTQ inclusive curriculums, and aims to reframe perceptions about the public school curriculum as he claims "to get to universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust."[3]
Contents
News and Controversies
Calculated Attack Against Harvard President Claudine Gay
On December 10, 2023, Chris Rufo and Christopher Brunet publicly accused Harvard's President Claudine Gay of plagiarizing her PhD thesis. This occurred amidst controversy surrounding her stance on anti-Semitism on campus and ultimately led to her resignation in January 2024.[4][5] In an interview with Politico, Rufo admitted that toppling Gay was an organized campaign, describing it as "a successful strategy for the political right."[5] The New York Times referred to this as a "proxy fight" in the culture war against DEI, stating, "Dr. Gay’s resignation on Tuesday secured their movement a signal victory at the country’s most storied private university, which had for weeks resisted calls for a change in leadership."[6]
LGBTQ Issues
Chris Rufo has also supported restricting LGBTQ inclusion and identity discussions in schools. In defense of Ron DeSantis' "Parental Rights in Education" law (the "Don't Say Gay" bill), which prohibits instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in schools, Rufo led an attack on Disney, the bill's main adversary. He shared a leaked Disney meeting on "Tucker Carlson Tonight," where a producer discussed adding “queerness” to a children's series, and later posted mug shots of Disney workers charged with sexual abuse of children on X. These actions spurred a broader conservative attack on Disney and were part of an effort to label opponents of the law as "groomers."[2]
Rufo also consulted with DeSantis on "The Individual Freedom Act" (the Stop W.O.K.E. Act) and appeared at the bill's signing. This legislation prohibits teaching that anyone is inherently biased or privileged because of their race or sex in workplaces and schools.[2]
Critical Race Theory
Aided by anti-racism seminar documents leaked by civil servents across the country in the summer of 2020, Rufo instigated the campaign against critical race theory (CRT). He, alongside the conservative bloc, brought CRT out of academia and transformed the term into political shorthand for various race-based teachings.[2] "The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think 'critical race theory.' We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.” he wrote on X in 2021.
On September 1, 2020, Chris Rufo appeared on a Fox News broadcast hosted by Tucker Carlson, where he targeted CRT, claiming it “has become, in essence, the default ideology of the federal bureaucracy and is now being weaponized against the American people.” He stated CRT amounts to “cult indoctrination" and urged Donald Trump to "immediately issue" an "executive order to stamp out this destructive, divisive, pseudoscientific ideology at its root," a call to action that proved to be highly impactful.[7] Spurred by Rufo, Trump passed an Executive Order later in the month against diversity training with a stated objective "to combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating." This EO was revoked upon Joe Biden's ascension to office.[8]
Fighting critical race theory has since gained major support from the GOP base and has become a contentious topic within the Republican Party.[9] Across the country, Republican lawmakers have proposed (and passed) legislation banning or restricting CRT in schools and corporate workplaces. Rufo has taken on an advisory role in the construction of a number of these bills.[10]
Associations
Known associations include:[1]
- Heritage Foundation, Visiting Fellow
- Claremont Institute
- Discovery Institute
- Manhattan Institute, Senior Fellow
- City Journal, Contributing Editor
Articles and Resources
Related SourceWatch
- Colleen Scerpella, The Right-Wing Network Manufacturing the War Against Higher Education, ExposedbyCMD, July 3, 2024.
- Walker Bragman and Alex Kotch, The Big Money Behind Chris Rufo’s Right-Wing Agitating, ExposedbyCMD, May 14, 2024.
- Alex Kotch, Financial Firm Cashes in on the Anti-Woke Crusade, ExposedbyCMD, August 1, 2022.
- David Armiak, ALEC Forum Promotes Manufactured Controversy Over the Factual Teaching of Racism in K-12 Schools, ExposedbyCMD, December 3, 2021.
- David Armiak and Arn Pearson, Fair Elections and U.S. Constitution Come Under Attack at ALEC Meeting, ExposedbyCMD, December 1, 2021.
- Don Wiener and Alex Kotch, ALEC Inspires Lawmakers to File Anti-Critical Race Theory Bills, ExposedbyCMD, July 27, 2021.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sarah Jones, How to Manufacture a Moral Panic New York Magazine, July 11, 2021.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Trip Gabriel, He Fuels the Right’s Cultural Fires (and Spreads Them to Florida), New York Times, April 24, 2022.
- ↑ RANDI WEINGARTEN AND JONAH EDELMAN, Extremists Are Using Lies to Undermine America’s Public Schools: We Need to Take a Stand, Time, APRIL 29, 2022.
- ↑ Tony Diver, Harvard University President Claudine Gay Accused of Plagiarism Amid Anti-Seminitism Row, The Telegraph, December 11, 2023.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Ian Ward, We Sat Down With the Conservative Mastermind Behind Claudine Gay's Ouster, Politico, January 3, 2024.
- ↑ Nicholas Confessore, How a Proxy Fight Over Campus Politics Brought Down Harvard’s President, New York Times, January 2, 2024.
- ↑ Sam Dorman, Chris Rufo calls on Trump to end critical race theory 'cult indoctrination' in federal government, Fox News, September 1, 2020.
- ↑ Jessica Guynn, President Joe Biden rescinds Donald Trump ban on diversity training about systemic racism, USA Today, January 20, 2021.
- ↑ Laura Meckler and Josh Dawsey, Republicans, spurred by an unlikely figure, see political promise in targeting critical race theory, The Washington Post, June 21, 2021.
- ↑ Benjamin Wallace-Wells, HOW A CONSERVATIVE ACTIVIST INVENTED THE CONFLICT OVER CRITICAL RACE THEORY, The New Yorker, June 18, 2021.
