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Christopher Rufo
Rufo in 2022
Born
Christopher Ferguson Rufo

(1984-08-26) August 26, 1984 (age 40)
EducationGeorgetown University (BS)
Harvard Extension School (ALM)
EmployerManhattan Institute for Policy Research
Known for
Anti-critical race theory activism
  • Opposition to LGBTQ discussions in classrooms
Spouse
Suphatra Paravichai
​
(m. 2016)​
Children3
Websitechristopherrufo.com

Christopher Ferguson Rufo (born August 26, 1984) is an American conservative activist,[1][2] New College of Florida board member, and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.[3] He is an opponent of critical race theory, which he says "has pervaded every aspect of the federal government" and poses "an existential threat to the United States".[4] He is a former documentary filmmaker and former fellow at the Discovery Institute, the Claremont Institute, The Heritage Foundation, and the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism.[5][4][6]

Rufo has been involved in Republican efforts to restrict critical race theory instruction or seminars.[4] He described his strategy to oppose critical race theory as using the term to "put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category" and "to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think 'critical race theory.'"[7] Rufo's appearances with Tucker Carlson on Fox News reportedly influenced President Donald Trump to issue an executive order in 2020 banning some topics from diversity training for the government and contractors; the order was rescinded by President Joe Biden in 2021.[1][4]

Rufo opposes teachers discussing LGBTQ issues in schools. He has contended that public schools are often "hunting grounds for sexual predators".[8][9] He has said that "to get to universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust."[10] Rufo has argued in favor of establishing a "bridge" between the "dissident right and the establishment right".[11]

Early life and education

Rufo was born on August 26, 1984.[12] He was raised in Sacramento, California. His father was born in San Donato Val di Comino, Italy,[13] and his mother is of Scottish ancestry. He graduated from the local Rio Americano High School in 2002.[citation needed] Rufo earned a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 2006.[14][4][5] In 2022, he earned a Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies in the field of Government[15] from Harvard Extension School.

Career and activism

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Rufo was a visiting fellow for domestic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation and a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute.[16][5] Later, he was a research fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Christian think tank known for its opposition to the theory of evolution and advocacy for intelligent design to be taught in public schools.[5][17][18] He was a documentary filmmaker in his twenties and early thirties, with overseas projects such as Roughing It: Mongolia, and a film about baseball in Xinjiang called Diamond in the Dunes.[4]

In 2017, Rufo was one of 30 plaintiffs in a lawsuit that successfully prevented Seattle from imposing a 2.25% income tax on sums above $250,000 a year for individuals and over $500,000 for couples.[19] In 2018, he briefly attempted a run for the city council.[20] In 2021, Rufo spoke at the National Conservatism Conference in Orlando.[21] In April 2022, Rufo was reported to have 2,500 paid subscribers to his newsletter.[9] The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has described Rufo as a "far-right propagandist".[22]

Rufo was one of several conservative education activists appointed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to the board of trustees of New College of Florida in January 2023.[23][24] Rufo hosted a social media discussion in which he expressed an interest in the ideas of far-right businessman Charles Haywood. In discussion, Haywood expressed a desire to form strategic alliances with white nationalists and authoritarian dictators in order to "destroy the left", citing Augusto Pinochet and Francisco Franco as examples of the latter.[11]

Critical race theory

See also: 2020s controversies around critical race theory and Critical race theory § United States

Rufo's views on race and poverty became more conservative while directing America Lost, a 2019 documentary coproduced by PBS and WNET for the series "Chasing the Dream: Poverty and Opportunity in America".[25][4] From 2016 through 2019, Rufo's investigation into poverty in cities that had declined dramatically following periods of prosperity—Youngstown, Ohio; Memphis, Tennessee; and Stockton, California—left him with the view that poverty stemmed from "social, familial, even psychological [dynamics]" and could not be solved by public policy.[4][26] Rufo said that the 2016 United States presidential election challenged ineffective establishment responses to poverty and drew attention to these cities.[26] In his 2018 Discovery Institute-funded policy paper "Seattle Under Siege: How Seattle's Homelessness Policy Perpetuates the Crisis and How We Can Fix It," Rufo wrote that four groups—"socialist intellectuals", "compassion brigades", the "homeless-industrial complex", and the "addiction evangelists"—had successfully framed the debate on homelessness and diverted funding to their projects,[27][28] with the "compassion brigade" calling for social justice using terms such as "compassion, empathy, bias, inequality, root causes, systemic racism."[28]

Rufo has opposed what he calls critical race theory in governmental and other publicly funded institutions, and has characterized it as a kind of "cult indoctrination".[7][29] Rufo contended in 2020 that "critical race theory has pervaded every institution in the federal government".[17] Critical race theory considers the idea that racism is systemic, in that laws, policies, regulations, and even court decisions create and continue historical racial prejudices in the United States.[30] Rufo described his strategy to oppose critical race theory as intentionally using the term to conflate various race-related ideas in order to create a negative association.[7] Rufo said that "[w]e will eventually turn [critical race theory] toxic, as we put all of the 'various cultural insanities' under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something 'crazy' in the newspaper and immediately think 'critical race theory'."[31] Rufo has described intersectionality as "a hard left academic theory that reduces people to a network of racial, gender and sexual orientation identities and intersect in complex ways and determine whether you are an oppressor or oppressed".[7] Kimberlé Crenshaw, an influential figure in critical race theory, has said that what Rufo and Republicans "are calling critical race theory is a whole range of things, most of which no one would sign on to, and many of the things in it are simply about racism".[4]

Through interviews with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, Rufo reportedly influenced the Trump administration to issue an executive order in 2020 to prohibit federal agencies from having diversity training that addressed topics such as systemic racism, white privilege and critical race theory.[4][1][32] The administration described such programs as "divisive, anti-American propaganda".[32] The ban was revoked by President Joe Biden on his first day in office.[1][32] Divisions continued at the state level, with Republican legislators putting forward bans on critical race theory.[33] Rufo has appeared multiple times on Tucker Carlson Tonight and The Ingraham Angle.[34][35][36] According to New Yorker writer Benjamin Wallace-Wells, Rufo's story on racially divided bias-training sessions in Seattle was a "phenomenon" that "helped to generate more leaks from across the country" about the contents of courses and diversity training programs.[4]

According to The Washington Post, Snopes and New York, Rufo has misrepresented contents of diversity training programs and course curricula.[7][37][5] For example, he falsely claimed that a diversity consultant hired by the U.S. Treasury Department had "told employees essentially that America was a fundamentally white supremacist country", and urged them to "accept their white racial superiority"; however, the diversity consultant had said no such thing.[7][5] Rufo told Fox News that The Washington Post subsequently issued multiple corrections to its reporting on him, including retracting a statement that a diversity seminar in Cupertino, California, referenced by Rufo did not occur.[38] The article itself lists as "clarifications" that "This report has been changed to clarify the sequence of events that followed Rufo’s appearance on Fox News last summer. In addition, the story adds a clarification from the Cupertino superintendent that a lesson was presented once before it was canceled."[7] New York magazine has also alleged that Rufo misrepresented the contents of internal documents from the Tigard-Tualatin School District in Oregon, which referenced Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In Rufo's view, the documents incited revolutionary sentiments and assumed that white people were born racist, which he called "textbook cult indoctrination". The school district stated that the documents had not been used in formal settings, that Rufo had misquoted the references to Freire, and that he had misconstrued a reference to teachers moving beyond the "belief that you aren't racist if you don't purposely or consciously act in racist ways".[5]

LGBTQ issues and schools

See also: LGBT grooming conspiracy theory

Rufo has been a prominent advocate for bans on teachers discussing LGBTQ issues in classrooms. He supported Florida House Bill 1557 (The Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, more commonly known as the "Don’t Say Gay" bill),[9] which prohibits teachers from discussing such matters in kindergarten through the third grade. Rufo appeared alongside Florida Governor Ron DeSantis when he signed a bill retaliating against Disney after the company criticized the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act.[9]

Rufo linked LGBTQ discussions at schools to grooming, the act of connecting with children for the purpose of sexually abusing them.[9] He said that schools were "hunting grounds" for sexually predatory teachers and that parents had "good reason" to worry about grooming.[9] Citing a study by Charol Shakeshaft, Rufo has claimed that public school teachers are responsible for 100 times more child sexual abuse than Catholic priests. Shakeshaft refuted this misuse of her data as "completely invalid".[8] After Disney criticized the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, Rufo suggested that Disney was involved in sexualizing children and that the company was rife with child sexual abuse.[9]

According to New York Times writer Trip Gabriel, "critics of Mr. Rufo, and of the broader right-wing push on LGBTQ issues, say the attacks represent a new era of moral panic, one with echoes of slanders from decades ago that gay teachers were a threat to children."[9] Writing for Salon, education journalist and political science lecturer Kathryn Joyce has argued that Rufo's claims about public school teachers and pedophilia are part of his goal to "generally foster so much anger against public schools that it drives a nationwide popular movement to privatize education".[39] Similarly, president of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten has claimed that Rufo and others who wish to privatize "public education are using Big Lies to undermine public schools."[10] Rufo has said that "To get to universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust."[40]

Rufo opposes "socio-emotional learning", saying that it "serves as a delivery mechanism for radical pedagogies such as critical race theory and gender deconstructionism." Socio-emotional learning, which promotes self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, social awareness and relationship building, was a fairly uncontroversial pedagogical technique before it received criticism from Republicans and Rufo.[41]

Claudine Gay campaign

In December 2023, Rufo and co-author Christopher Brunet investigated the past research of Harvard University president Claudine Gay, who had recently attracted controversy over her handling of antisemitism at the university and her defense of the university's handling of the situation at a congressional hearing. Rufo and Brunet alleged that many of her articles, including her dissertation, were plagiarized.[42] Following further investigations of the plagiarism allegations in mainstream media outlets, Gay announced her resignation on January 2, 2024.[43][44] In an interview with Politico, Rufo stated that Gay's resignation "was the result of a coordinated and highly organized conservative campaign."[43]

Hoax reward offered

In September 2024, during an incident related to the Springfield, Ohio, cat-eating hoax, Rufo alleged that African migrants were eating cats in Dayton, Ohio, based on an August 2023 video of skinned animals being grilled, which drew social media responses that the skinned animals resembled chickens. Dayton police responded that "there is no evidence to even remotely suggest that any group, including our immigrant community, is engaged in eating pets", while the Dayton mayor reported "absolutely zero reports of this type of activity".[45][46] Rufo has offered a $5,000 reward for proof supporting the hoax.[47]

Personal life

Rufo is married to Suphatra "Kip" Paravichai, a Thai-American. She was once a computer programmer at Amazon Web Services.[4] As of 2021, they live in Gig Harbor, Washington, with their three sons.[20][48] He is Catholic.[49]

Books

  • Rufo, Christopher F. (2023). America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything. New York, NY: Broadside Books. ISBN 978-0063227538.
  • Jackson, Kerry; Rufo, Christopher F.; Tartakovsky, Joseph; Winegarden, Wayne (2021). No Way Home: The Crisis of Homelessness and How to Fix It with Intelligence and Humanity (First American ed.). New York London: Encounter Books. ISBN 9781641771641.

References

  1. ^ a b c d Guynn, Jessica (January 20, 2021). "President Joe Biden rescinds Donald Trump ban on diversity training about systemic racism". USA Today. Retrieved May 4, 2021.
  2. ^ Kiernan, Paul (October 9, 2020). "Conservative Activist Grabbed Trump's Eye on Diversity Training". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved May 7, 2021.
  3. ^ "Christopher F. Rufo". Manhattan Institute. Retrieved May 9, 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wallace-Wells, Benjamin (June 18, 2021). "How a Conservative Activist Invented the Conflict Over Critical Race Theory". The New Yorker. Retrieved June 19, 2021.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Jones, Sarah (July 11, 2021). "How to Manufacture a Moral Panic". Intelligencer. Archived from the original on July 11, 2021. Retrieved July 12, 2021.
  6. ^ Beedle, Heidi (December 1, 2022). "A New Conservative Group Uses Anti-LGBTQ Sentiment to Attack Colorado Public Schools". Colorado Times Recorder. Retrieved January 31, 2023.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Meckler, Laura; Dawsey, Josh (June 21, 2021). "Republicans, spurred by an unlikely figure, see political promise in critical race theory". The Washington Post. Vol. 144. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved February 12, 2024.
  8. ^ a b Chait, Jonathan (April 13, 2022). "Christopher Rufo Foments a School-Rape Panic". Intelligencer. Retrieved April 17, 2022.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Gabriel, Trip (April 24, 2022). "He Fuels the Right's Cultural Fires (and Spreads Them to Florida)". The New York Times. Vol. 171, no. 59403. p. A27. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 24, 2022.
  10. ^ a b Weingarten, Randi; Edelman, Jonah (April 29, 2022). "Extremists Are Using Lies to Undermine America's Public Schools: We Need to Take a Stand". Time. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  11. ^ a b Wilson, Jason (October 11, 2023). "'No enemies to the right': DeSantis ally hosts debate hedging white nationalism". The Guardian.
  12. ^ "Library of Congress Authorities". Library of Congress. September 3, 2020. Archived from the original on June 25, 2021. Retrieved June 25, 2021.
  13. ^ Rufo, Christopher F. (July 29, 2019). "Madness and Society". City Journal. ISSN 1060-8540. residents of San Donato Val di Comino, Italy [...] My father was born in this village
  14. ^ Cauterucci, Christina. "Four Georgetown Alumni Featured at Silverdocs Film Festival". GEMA – Georgetown Entertainment and Media Alliance. Retrieved June 21, 2021.
  15. ^ "Harvard Prof. Hochschild Apologizes For Comments on Rufo Extension School Degree". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
  16. ^ "Christopher Rufo". The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
  17. ^ a b Dawsey, Josh; Stein, Jeff (September 5, 2020). "White House directs federal agencies to cancel race-related training sessions it calls 'un-American propaganda'". The Washington Post.
  18. ^ Rufo, Christopher. "Christopher Rufo". Discovery Institute. Retrieved June 27, 2021.
  19. ^ Boiko-Weyrauch, Anna (November 16, 2017). "Seattle Defends Its New High-Earner Income Tax In Court". NPR. Retrieved June 25, 2021.
  20. ^ a b Hutchinson, Chase (June 24, 2021). "Mastermind of 'Critical Race Theory' Uproar Lives in Gig Harbor. Who is Christopher Rufo?". Tacoma News Tribune. Retrieved August 2, 2021.
  21. ^ Dias, Isabela. "Christopher Rufo launched the critical race theory panic. He isn't done". Mother Jones. Retrieved August 6, 2023.
  22. ^ Wilson, Jason (November 22, 2022). "Colorado Springs: Far-Right Influencers Made LGBTQ People Into Targets". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved December 1, 2022.
  23. ^ Ceballos, Ana; Solochek, Jeffrey S. (January 6, 2023). "DeSantis seeks conservative overhaul at Florida liberal arts college". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved January 11, 2023.
  24. ^ Goldberg, Michelle (January 10, 2023). "Opinion | DeSantis Allies Plot the Hostile Takeover of a Liberal College". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 17, 2023.
  25. ^ Christopher Rufo (director) (2019). America Lost. PBS. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
  26. ^ a b Rafael Pi Roman (host), Christopher Rufo (guest) (2019). "America Lost" finds community, poverty in three rust belt cities. PBS. Chasing the Dream. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
  27. ^ Walker, Meghan (November 2, 2018). "City council candidate Christopher Rufo takes on homelessness in upcoming public event". My Ballard. Ballard, Seattle. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
  28. ^ a b Rufo, Christopher (October 16, 2018). The Politics of Ruinous Compassion: How Seattle's Homelessness Policy Perpetuates the Crisis And How We Can Fix It. Discovery Institute (Report). A Discovery Institute White Paper. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
  29. ^ Baker, Peter (September 6, 2020). "More Than Ever, Trump Casts Himself as the Defender of White America". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
  30. ^ "Critical Race Theory". cyber.harvard.edu. Retrieved May 30, 2023.
  31. ^ Iati, Marisa (May 29, 2021). "What is critical race theory, and why do Republicans want to ban it in schools?". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on May 30, 2021. Retrieved May 31, 2021.
  32. ^ a b c Schwartz, Matthew S. (September 5, 2020). "Trump Tells Agencies to End Trainings on 'White Privilege' and 'Critical Race Theory'". NPR. Archived from the original on September 5, 2020. Retrieved August 2, 2021.
  33. ^ Dutton, Jack (June 11, 2021). "Critical Race Theory Is Banned in These States". Newsweek. Archived from the original on June 11, 2021.
  34. ^ Fuchs, Hailey (October 13, 2020). "Trump Attack on Diversity Training Has a Quick and Chilling Effect". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
  35. ^ Guynn, Jessica (December 23, 2020). "Donald Trump executive order banning diversity training blocked by federal judge". USA Today. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
  36. ^ Drum, Kevin (January 8, 2021). "At Fox News, it's always about scary threats to white people". Mother Jones. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
  37. ^ Ibrahim, Nur (March 30, 2021). "Does Calif. Ethnic Studies Curriculum Call for Chants to Aztec Gods, 'Countergenocide'?". Snopes. Retrieved July 6, 2021.
  38. ^ Kornick, Lindsay (June 22, 2021). "Washington Post issues 'clarifications' on story about critical race theory opponent Chris Rufo". Fox News. Retrieved July 7, 2021.
  39. ^ Joyce, Kathryn (April 8, 2022). "The guy who brought us CRT panic offers a new far-right agenda: Destroy public education". Salon. Retrieved January 8, 2024.
  40. ^ Stroud, Gregory (October 14, 2022). "What's Behind the Attacks on our Public Schools?". The Connecticut Examiner. Retrieved October 21, 2022.
  41. ^ Goldstein, Dana; Saul, Stephanie (April 22, 2022). "A Look Inside the Textbooks That Florida Rejected". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 23, 2022.
  42. ^ Diver, Tony (December 11, 2023). "Harvard University president Claudine Gay accused of plagiarism amid anti-Semitism row". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on December 11, 2023. Retrieved December 11, 2023.
  43. ^ a b Ward, Ian (January 3, 2024). "We Sat Down With the Conservative Mastermind Behind Claudine Gay's Ouster". POLITICO. Retrieved January 4, 2024.
  44. ^ "Departure of Harvard's Claudine Gay plays into campus culture wars". January 3, 2024. Retrieved January 4, 2024.
  45. ^ Valdez, Aaron (September 14, 2024). "JD Vance shares social media post about immigrants cooking pets in Dayton, city refutes it". Cincinnati Enquirer. Retrieved September 15, 2024.
  46. ^ Tarrant, Rhona (September 14, 2024). "Ohio police dispute new allegations immigrants are eating pets in Dayton". CBS News. Retrieved September 15, 2024.
  47. ^ Rohrlich, Justin ‘Clearly chicken you weirdo’: People respond to JD Vance sharing video he claims shows migrants grilling cats, Independent, September 15, 2024
  48. ^ Rufo, Christopher [@realchrisrufo] (August 23, 2022). "Last night, we welcomed our third son, Massimo Kap Rufo, into the world. Mother and child are both healthy and resting at home. @skprufo" (Tweet). Retrieved January 10, 2023 – via Twitter.
  49. ^ Rufo, Chris (September 30, 2024). "I am a Catholic and we recite the St. Michael's prayer at the end of every Mass. It's a beautiful prayer". X. Retrieved October 15, 2024.
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