Christopher Rufo

Director, Center on Wealth & Poverty
Christopher Rufo is the director of the Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth & Poverty.

He has directed four documentaries for PBS, Netflix, and international television, including his latest film, America Lost, that tells the story of three "forgotten American cities.” Christopher is currently a contributing editor of City Journal, where he covers poverty, homelessness, addiction, crime, and other afflictions.

Christopher is a magna cum laude graduate of Georgetown University, Claremont Institute Lincoln Fellow, and has appeared on NPR, CNN, ABC, CBS, HLN, and FOX News.

Archives

Critical Race Fragility

The Left has denounced the “war on woke,” but it is afraid to defend the principles of critical race theory in public debate.
Christopher Rufo
March 4, 2021
The Left has denounced the “war on woke,” but it is afraid to defend the principles of critical race theory in public debate.

Failure Factory

Buffalo’s school district tells students that “all white people play a part in perpetuating systemic racism”—while presiding over miserable student outcomes.
Christopher Rufo
February 24, 2021
Buffalo school administrators have adopted fashionable new pedagogies: “culturally responsive teaching,” “pedagogy of liberation,” “equity-based instructional strategies,” and an “emancipatory curriculum.”

Gone Crazy

A New York City public school principal calls on white parents to “subvert white authority.”
Christopher Rufo
February 19, 2021
New York’s East Side Community School recently sent a letter encouraging white parents to become “white traitors” and advocate for “white abolition.”

Bad Education

In a Philadelphia elementary school, teachers are putting a premium on radicalism, not reading.
Christopher Rufo
February 12, 2021
A Philadelphia elementary school recently forced fifth-grade students to celebrate “black communism” and simulate a Black Power rally in honor of political radical Angela Davis.

Spoiled Rotten

Students at the United Nations International School launch an anonymous social media campaign denouncing their teachers as “racists” and “oppressors.”
Christopher Rufo
January 28, 2021
The United Nations International School has succumbed to the new racial hysteria.

“Antiracism” Comes to the Heartland

A Missouri middle school forces teachers to locate themselves on an “oppression matrix” and watch a video of “George Floyd’s last words.”
Christopher Rufo
January 20, 2021
For years, Americans have watched as educators have pushed deeply divisive “antiracism” programs in coastal cities such as Berkeley, Portland, and Seattle. Now “antiracism” has come to the heartland.

Woke Elementary

A Cupertino elementary school forces third-graders to deconstruct their racial identities, then rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.”
Christopher Rufo
January 13, 2021
An elementary school in Cupertino, California—a Silicon Valley community with a median home price of $2.3 million—recently forced a class of third-graders to deconstruct their racial identities, then rank themselves according to their “power and privilege.”

Radicals in the Classroom

San Diego’s school district tells white teachers that they are guilty of “spirit murdering” black children and should undergo “antiracist therapy.”
Christopher Rufo
January 6, 2021
The San Diego Unified School District has been radicalized. In recent months, the district has announced mandatory diversity training for teachers, added a new “ethnic studies” curriculum focused on racial grievance, and even abolished the requirement to turn in homework on time—all in the name of becoming, in the words of school board member Richard Barrera, “an anti-racist school district.” Last month, I reported on one of these training sessions, focused on “white privilege,” in which white teachers were accused of being colonizers on stolen Native American land and told “you are racist” and “you are upholding racist ideas, structures, and policies.” The trainers demanded that the teachers “confront and examine [their] white privilege,” “acknowledge when [they] feel white fragility,” and “teach others to see ...

Indoctrinating An Entire School System in PC Racism

Seattle school district claims education system is guilty of “spirit murder” against black children.
Christopher Rufo
December 18, 2020
What’s the goal here? Simply put, to transform Seattle schools into activist organizations. At the conclusion of the training, teachers had to explain how they will practice “anti-racist pedagogy,” address the “social-justice movements taking place” and become “anti-racist outside the classroom.”