How Christopher Rufo Is Taking Down DEI | More with Marissa Streit

somebody has anonymously dropped us 40-page research file documenting floting Gaye plagiarism Christopher rufo Chris rufo Chris rufo Christopher rufo Chris rufo we're really excited to be joined today by Christopher rufo universities used to be a home to produce scholarship in pursuit of the true the good and the Beautiful oh the chief troublemaker and I love it you know it's funny when I was um preparing to just chat with you I was looking up all kinds of hate articles about but what is amazing is I anticipated that I'd find each article say something different about you you know racist or you know white you know right-wing extremist whatever literally every article about you is the same article they change the title but it's the same thing it's it's like there's a robot that just takes the words and doesn't even it's like complete plagiarism it's amazing yeah and and and it's actually interesting I don't get the typical smears the big the big one is that I'm a you know right-wing or conservative propagandist yeah um which I find to be an amazing um smear because one is I'm I'm propagating the truth I'm getting the truth out there but it's like you know propaganda is usually something that a state a nation state does a large institution does I run a tiny operation with like two or three people and so the fact that I'm like big scary propagandist that's threatening to disturb the status quo from such a small position it's actually like a kind of an unintentional compliment so I like look if that's my bad rap I'll take it that's you know what it's a it's a crack in the system that they're not willing to take because they know that the cracks will create the pressure and they will allow no descent and so they have to squash you as fast as possible yeah what is I mean I think one of the things that really put you on the map recently is your exposure of Claudine gay the president of of Harvard and her plag ISM and I've been really dying to ask you how did you how did you find that yeah I mean in a sense it found me uh obviously this was a huge story following the Hamas Terror attacks uh on October 7th claudon gay was in the news because she was telling she told Congress that calling for the genocide of Jews might not violate Harvard's policies depending on the context which is like um you know kind of PR nightmare but and I had written a little bit about it I was trying to tell people this is the connection between decolonization ideology Dei and then the pramas faction on campuses so I was trying to connect the dots for people and as I was doing that reporting which was kind of um mostly explanatory or analytical actually got an email from a colleague who got it from an anonymous source said you need to check this out somebody has anonymously dropped us the full research file docu like 40 page research file documenting Claud and Gaye plagiarism I still to this day don't know who sent it under what motiv don't know anything about it but the great thing about that kind of material is it's easily verifiable so I said all right well I'll buy all the papers check to make sure that these people are portraying it accurately verify that that it's true um and then once we verified it you know authenticated the the claims um I knew it was going to be explosive because you have the president of the world's most prestigious academic institution predicated her entire career on academic fraud and so I knew that that was going to take this whole Scandal to the next level and uh sure enough it did do people know to send in emails when they discover things to you and like where do they go did you go to your website I'm not sure I even knew that I can give you tips on you my abs tips yeah yeah it's just r at proton mail it's a secure email drop um people know I should probably you know promote it even more when I do big reported series I usually promote you know here's the tip line Here's the the the place to send me send me materials and so I've developed a lot of sources around the country on various reporting projects um and I think this one came in likely because I was reporting on this so I was doing higher education reform I was doing the work here in Florida at new College I was writing about abolishing EI and so I think that this uh whistleblower or leaker whatever you want to call this person I suspect it's an academic just kind of have that feeling intuitively from the document also like who's going to be checking plagiarism documents who knows how to do that but I think they said all right this is a person who could take this information and turn it into a big deal wow and so whoever you are thank you I know well thank you on behalf of America right and probably western civilization in general I think she would still be president if it were not for the plagiarism sure for sure like calling for the genocide of of of of Jews or or you know kind of rationalizing calls for the genocide she didn't call for genocide obviously but she kind of rationalized it excused it drew circles around it you know kind of sad I mean it's kind of sad that like that's not enough you know that's how far things are gone it's like just unbelievable it's a sad state but I think that look we put one Victory up and uh hopefully more to come well you obviously woke up a lot of people to the dangers of Dei and then most recently you had another huge Victory which I don't want to just ignore and that's what you did here at the University of Florida right where you got them to fire everybody that works for the de Department how did that can you just give me the background on I mean there must be a story behind yeah that's a long time coming but you know at basically at the beginning of last year um I had model legislation uh uh you know worked on model legislation I worked with with the governor's Governor Dan Sis's team here in Florida I did investigative reporting series of five exposing Dei at five Florida public universities um launched this campaign at this great event with Governor Dan santis um you know helped you know get this legislation through to abolish all of the Dei offices in all of Florida's public universities and so fast forward because these things take time they're administrative procedures um you know these Dei offices start disappearing at campuses and then finally at University of Florida that had that was spending $5 million on Dei programs per year um you know they president SAS over there did did the right thing complied with the law obviously but he made it very simple he said all the Dei employees are their employment is terminated they can apply for other jobs they may or may not get them um but we're going to follow the law we're going to and then we're going to spend that $5 million recruiting All-Star faculty from around the country and so very simple thing do you want to have left-wing Dei bureaucrats you know poisoning campus culture or do you want to spend that money recruiting the next great academic or scientist or philosopher um and bringing them to the State of Florida and so I think that I mean I'm I'm I'm you know not shy to take credit but really the credit belongs in the governor's office uh the governor himself you know took the took the lead on this issue um and now other states are following suit do you think this can also happen in other other colleges in Florida well it's happened in every College in in Florida's public universities there are no more Dei departments anywhere in the State of Florida in the public universities private universities can do what they wish but here's the thing if we're setting the expectation we're setting the precedent that you don't have to have this actually it's better not to have this you can save money you can improve campus culture you can have a greater variety of viewpoints you can comply with civil rights law you know that's something that universities should do um by by by abolishing Dei I think we're going to start seeing private universities follow suit and we've already seen many corporations especially in high-tech the last six months companies that you wouldn't even expect um you know leftwing Silicon Valley companies um trimming their Dei departments by as much as 90% And so that's a story that hasn't been hasn't been told publicly to to a huge degree um but to me that's a sign where people are saying we tried this maybe people had good intentions uh it doesn't work in practice let's just treat everyone equally and try something else yeah hopefully goes into what I call into the bloodstream right so it's not just the top down and they don't exist but you know the the student body the parents who are sending their kids to those schools will start realizing that they don't want to waste money on you know teams that actually backfire on them yeah yeah exactly and you could do cool programs for students you could cut tuition you could do all sorts of things with that money because at the end of the day anyone who runs a budget you run a big budget for for prer you you guys have been very successful but look there's always limited yeah you know you can spend it on this or this there's always trade-offs there's always limits you always have to find out a responsible executive says what's the best use of this and I think it's getting harder and harder to say the best use of money is to put it into Dei right I don't think anyone believes that anymore I'm curious one last question and I don't know if you've thought about this but sometimes for me at prageru I feel like there is this pressure on constantly doing the impossible constantly delivering Miracles right is like we started with the five minute videos and all the millions of views and then we did the documentaries and then we made prayer you kids in schools and then we made it into the schools and it's like people are just constantly expecting us to do the impossible and I'm expecting my staff to always do the impossible and it's 13 years of doing the impossible do you hear what I'm what I'm saying is there that kind of pressure on you too I feel like it's like okay Chris what's the next miracle that you're going to deliver to America right it yeah for sure yeah there's expectation and especially when you do something very successful you're always feeling like oof okay I got to find out the next thing what am I going to do and um there is a bit of kind of background anxiety pressure expectation that's probably good you know that's what drives you to succeed that's what you know that's that's what makes you try try to stretch and and and I know that for for what you guys are doing you've accelerated it's not just oh you've done a bunch of different things I think from even what I've you know last few years that I've been working with you and and getting to know you and the organization you guys are doing new things at an accelerating Pace also not just scale and so I think that's good look we're it's not like we can be complacent we can't just relax right now we got we got to hustle and and at the end of the day I think even on a personal level yes there is expectation yes there's some anxiety you got to you got to you got to you got to reach new heights but then you kind of have to just follow your instincts figure out what's engaging in your curiosity and and figure out what you're doing that's fun um and I've noticed that projects that I do that are not fun that are not kind of driven by curiosity that have some you know poor motive that you know whatever like not quite not quite the right fit those are the projects that for me like don't quite work but when I'm having fun when I'm fully engaged even if I don't set out to make something out of it those seem to be the things that are are the most successful I think people are wondering what are the things that they can invest in in order to help repair America I think people are starting to realize that they should look at their philanthropic investments in the similar way that they would look into their financial investments you want to invest in winners and so I know that our relationship started many years ago when both of us were were small small operations and both of us were you know shooting for miracles right we had these moonshot ideas and it's just so amazing to sit here with you I think from from a certain standpoint you've been one of prageru's Investments we were like that guy that guy is special and I just I I completely would double down on that and I think that anybody that has supported you uh from the get-go is probably just feeling so proud and so excited and just rooting for you and it's it's so fun for me to sit with you and say I knew you when because to me now you're like oh the chief troublemaker and I love it it's great yeah I think you're right and um and I'm grateful for all the support that I got early on from you from a lot of other people and I think that we all have to be uh you just like an investor would think great investors realize the principle of power law distribution or you know highrisk High reward and so philanthropists and investors and people who've been successful have to carry that same risk-taking spirit that same um ambitious spirit it's not just give to your alma mater give to the Opera you know give to the to the to the YMCA Alma moer don't do it okay Opera maybe do it YMCA yeah probably good um but actually be more creative and and and take that same approach that you had in in business life to your to your philanthropic life and invest in things where people are driving results that are undeniable there's a lot of stuff in our world where great presentations a nice sales pitch but then you're kind of like yeah but what is it tangibly that has been accomplished and then you know with with with Prager with with you know I hope with what I'm doing as well we can say very clearly this is what we've done this is what we've accomplished we're actually moving the ball forward on in this way um and we we we have to demand that and and I even tell my my because I have a very small budget um uh I tell my I tell my folks you know who who who support me I say look at all your philanthropic contributions and tell me like who and I want to know if I'm if I'm not number one on per dollar impact like don't give me any money what I completely agree hold us accountable please yeah yeah exactly like if I'm not delivering if if you have other Investments where you're saying okay for how much money I'm putting in I'm getting X kind of return on it make sure that I'm there like I don't want you to make me lazy either I want to be able to show you next year when we meet again like this is what we did I'm excited to tell you and I'm not going to have to BS you because because you know you you're aware of the impact and I mean that's kind of what you guys do as well in your pitches yeah I love that well it's great it's so great to serve alongside you thank you Chris likewise thank you