Rufophobia Is Rising. But Why?

Leading CRT and DEI critic Chris Rufo reportedly has Trump's ear. That's triggering panic attacks inside the higher-ed establishment.

Who is Christopher F. Rufo? And why does he scare the bejesus out of so many stalwart defenders of the higher-ed status quo?

The questions are prompted by a flurry of recent pieces, many written in panicky tones, suggesting that the controversial Mr. Rufo has the ear of President-Elect Donald J. Trump and could exercise outsized influence in shaping the next administration’s higher-ed reform agenda.

Are the panic attacks this triggered in certain circles justified?

That all depends on where one stands on the sources and severity of academia’s current crisis, and on how aggressively one wants to pursue painful but necessary reforms. Rufo (for now) might not be a household name. But he’s obviously making waves, given the admiration or enmity he evokes with higher-ed watchers. Some laud his work as a reformer. Others fear him as a wrecking ball. The world sometimes seems split between Rufophobes and Rufophiles.

Here’s a bit more background for those who still aren’t sure.

A bare-bones dossier on Rufo reads as follows:

Profession: Conservative activist, investigative journalist, filmmaker, and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Rufo also served as a trustee at the New College of Florida, where he played a role in significant institutional changes.

Education: Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service; Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies in Government from Harvard University.

Notable Activities: Rufo has been a prominent figure in the opposition to critical race theory (CRT) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives on campus. He uses the term “CRT” to encapsulate a wide array of what he describes as "cultural insanities." This work has been linked to a 2020 executive order by then-President Trump aimed at banning certain topics from diversity training for federal employees and government contractors.

Publications: Rufo authored "America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything" and regularly contributes to City Journal, where he’s an editor. He’s been published widely, including by FoxNews.com and The New York Post, and has amassed a significant following on social media. Rufo has risen to prominence by critiquing what he perceives as ideological overreach by progressive movements in education and government. His approach often involves investigative journalism, public speaking, and policy advocacy to challenge these ideologies.

But here’s what sparked the latest outbreak of Rufophobia in certain quarters.

The Wall Street Journal triggered the panic attacks on Nov. 25 with this piece, “Christopher Rufo Has Trump’s Ear and Wants to End DEI for Good,” which read in part:

The first time then-President Donald Trump asked Christopher Rufo to come to Washington for a meeting with his team, the result was a 2020 executive order banning race or sex stereotyping in the federal government.

Now Rufo has an invitation to Mar-a-Lago, where he will present the president-elect’s team with a plan to geld American universities by withholding money if they don’t pull back on diversity measures. It is the latest chapter in Rufo’s quest to end activities that he says divide Americans and foster bias against different groups, including white men.

From his perch outside Seattle, the 40-year-old documentary filmmaker and writer has become one of the country’s most influential—and effective—culture warriors, waging public fights against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in schools, businesses and government.

Rufo reportedly isn’t interested in working in Trump’s White House. He just wants to shape the next administration's policies, working through allies on the inside like Vice-President-elect JD Vance, according to the WSJ.

Vance views Rufo as “a leading voice in the movement to restore merit and excellence” to universities, a spokeswoman said, adding that the vice president-elect believes Rufo “recognizes schools and universities exist to equip American students to face tomorrow’s challenges, not to indoctrinate them with the fringe beliefs of the far left.

Rufo said he is meeting with members of the Trump administration next month. He has said he thinks colleges and universities have been taken over by the left, and he wants to recapture them by cutting federal money to schools that continue to engage in DEI practices. He also wants to excise race-based affirmative action from any institution with which the federal government does business.

He has a particular animus toward elite universities which he says traded merit and rigor for neo-Marxism and discrimination against white and Asian people.

“It’s time to really put the hammer to these institutions and to start withdrawing potentially billions of dollars in funding until they follow the law,” he said.

The Journal piece generated aftershocks.

“Will Trump take Christopher Rufo’s conservative Florida vision nationwide? asked the Tampa Bay Times? The piece points to Republican-dominated Florida as a test bed for ideas that Trump could apply nationally. “Florida may offer the clearest example of Rufo’s vision,” says the story:

“President Trump has the opportunity to do what we’ve done in Florida on a national scale,” Rufo said in a Fox News interview Tuesday.

Rufo has appeared next to Gov. Ron DeSantis at key moments in the governor’s foray into campus culture wars and helped catapult New College of Florida, where he sits on the board of trustees, into national headlines. He consulted on the state’s Stop WOKE Act and helped instigate the governor’s war with Disney, after leaking internal company training slides on systemic racism."

What has Rufo been doing at New College of Florida?

Here’s how the Times tells the story:

There’s likely no better example of Rufo’s vision for academic reform than New College, where he was appointed to the board of trustees by DeSantis in early 2023.

Over the past two years the board has eliminated its office of diversity, equity and inclusion, abolished gender studies, and introduced what critics call a restrictive core curriculum centered around western values.

After losing a third of the school’s teaching staff, administrators brought on more ideologically aligned replacements, in some cases circumventing traditional academic hiring practices to do so.

New College administrators have wrangled control of the school’s endowment and singled out dissenting students for punishment.

They’ve also overseen a rapid increase in enrollment — bolstered by a new sports program and generous scholarships — and initiated a construction spree to revamp the aging campus.

The left-leaning New Republic takes a Rufophobic tack when it refers to him as “this disturbing figure” in the headline of this piece. More mixed reactions to the WSJ piece can be found here, here, and here.

No one knows what Rufo and Trump will discuss when they meet. How much actual influence Rufo will have, and which of his recommendations will result in concrete policy changes, remains to be seen. But Rufo, being Rufo, hasn’t been secretive about what he’ll share with Trump. He lays it out plainly in a “Counterrevolution Blueprint” published by City Journal earlier this week. Much of the piece focuses not on remaking higher education but on purging what Rufo calls “left-wing racialism” from the federal workspace. Many of the same principles no doubt apply to Rufo’s vision for higher education.

Rufo explains himself in the piece. Readers can judge for themselves whether he’s promoting reasonable and achievable reforms or proposing “fixes” that are far too radical and beyond the pale.

All we know with certainty now is that Christopher F. Rufo scares the daylights out of the higher education establishment. And perhaps that’s telling. “You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends,” wrote the novelist Joseph Conrad. All the foes Rufo appears to be making, along with the fear he strikes in the establishment, would suggest to some that he’s doing the lord’s work.