Christopher Ferguson Rufo was born on August 26,1984 and is an American conservative activist, New College of Florida board member, and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
27 Facts About Christopher Rufo
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Christopher Rufo 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.
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Christopher Rufo's father was born in San Donato Val di Comino, Italy, and his mother is of Scottish ancestry.
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Christopher Rufo graduated from the local Rio Americano High School in 2002.
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Christopher Rufo earned a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 2006.
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Christopher Rufo was a visiting fellow for domestic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation and a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute.
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Christopher Rufo 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.
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In 2021, Christopher Rufo spoke at the National Conservatism Conference in Orlando.
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Christopher 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.
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Christopher Rufo has argued in favor of establishing a "bridge" between the "dissident right and the establishment right".
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Christopher Rufo said that the 2016 United States presidential election challenged ineffective establishment responses to poverty and drew attention to these cities.
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Christopher 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".
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Christopher Rufo contended in 2020 that "critical race theory has pervaded every institution in the federal government".
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Christopher 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.
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Kimberle Crenshaw, an influential figure in critical race theory, has said that what Christopher 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".
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Christopher Rufo has appeared multiple times on Tucker Carlson Tonight and The Ingraham Angle.
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Christopher 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 Christopher Rufo did not occur.
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In Christopher Rufo's view, the documents incited revolutionary sentiments and assumed that white people were born racist, which he called "textbook cult indoctrination".
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The school district stated that the documents had not been used in formal settings, that Christopher 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".
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Christopher Rufo has been a prominent advocate for bans on teachers discussing LGBTQ issues in classrooms.
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Christopher Rufo supported Florida House Bill 1557, which prohibits teachers from discussing such matters in kindergarten through the third grade.
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Christopher 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.
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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.
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In September 2024, during an incident related to the Springfield, Ohio, cat-eating hoax, Christopher 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.
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Christopher Rufo has offered a $5,000 reward for proof supporting the unsubstantiated allegation.
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Christopher Rufo is married to Suphatra "Kip" Paravichai, a Thai American.
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Christopher Rufo was once a computer programmer at Amazon Web Services.