Public defenders of DEI elide the difference between teaching what the tenets of critical studies are and promoting "Critical" viewpoints as true or by-default "normal" (the more common approach - attempting to "normalize" without debate or definition).
There is no legitimate reason to emphasize or include Critical approaches above or more comprehensively than, say, surveying Marxist views (whether orthodox (Lenin, etc.) or "heretical" (Mussolini, Gramsci, etc.). Even this approach applies to a very few disciplines - including it in, say, nursing pedagogy is propagandistic because the subject matter itself does not include the dissection and examination of such ideas.
Basically, outside of philosophy discussions per-se, there is very little reason for such theories to appear. As a confirmation of my statement: who talks about the the rival interpretations of Marxism proposed by Lenin and Mussolini these days? Only philosophy students - because neither version of Marxism is ascendant at this time. It is political ascendancy only which takes Critical Theory out of the Philosophy Department (and very adjacent areas such as history which refer-back to philosophy).
It is precisely the activist push for present and immediate cultural/political ascendancy which accounts for any appearance of Critical Theory outside of a philosophical examination of it, per-se. All else is advocacy - propagation (propaganda).
There is also the systemic risk of DEI compliance officers at all major universities, which permeate the university as a whole. Without aggressive protest and action, the indoctrination of our children which begins in K-12, will be the final blow to whatever remains of America’s shared identity and values based on individual freedom.
Wonderful, Chris! I’ve watched this devolution my entire life. I am 62, was a precocious follower of current events and history. I missed the 60’s, but read all the major 60’s new left literature. Never bought into it; was an NR subscriber at age 20, lol.
By the mid 80’s, it was clear the crazy train was taking off. Like so many, I assumed it would crash and burn from its contradictions, nuttiness and fragility. I thought the Sokol scandal at NYU might have an impact. Instead, it has taken over entire generations of “educated” people.
Just downloaded and printed out the Jaffe article.
I am an executive recruiter and writer. If I can be helpful to you in any fashion, formal or informal, please let me know.
Completely logical idea, makes too much sense and is easy to do. Like with any non-producing major, teach out remaining students and call it a day. However, in today's hysteria-fueled twitterverse and state-run-media messaging the internet would explode with faux rage and not-so-subtle calls for protest and a visit from the national Antifa office.
Knowing the probable reactions, it would take a university board, president and administration that will stick to its principles and actually do the right thing. You and Gov. DeSantis have laid out a viable blueprint that show this can be done. This outcome is not only doable but necessary. Keep grinding!!!!
We must require that critical thinking and debating skills be part of the curriculum AND that a required number of conservative teachers be hired to teach in every academic department.
It is a problematic history, one that is carefully spelled out in the above referenced article. CRT is not some new-fangled concept that was dreamed up over the last few years, but a direct outgrowth of years and years of Marxist ideology imbedded in the American university system. It has also become a lucrative industry, evidenced by the many companies, consultants, training programs, and professional organizations that service academia and corporate America.
DEI is a cancer that has metastasized throughout our institutions. Perhaps there is some way to turn it against itself - the way the healthy immune system attacks malignancy. Continuing to provide real facts about the failure of this system is a good start, but it has to be a persistent and unrelenting pushback. I think, Christopher Rufo is off to a brilliant start!
Mar 20, 2023·edited Mar 20, 2023Liked by Christopher F. Rufo
It's time to defund colleges and universities that prioritize political activism over education. To understand how we got where we are today and why it matters, see "Legacy of Lies" in the latest issue of my Substack at https://2026.substack.com/p/legacy-of-lies
Mostly done w the Jaffa piece, it blows my mind. It is startling how few university presidents fought back in any real way. Hayakawa and Silber are the only ones I can think of.
I grew up in an academic environment, and have deep affection for what it once was. The good news is, there are very very few real revolutionaries among them. Most of them are academics (or admins, lol) because they are afraid of the big bad world.
For years, I’ve been saying we should starve the perverted rabbits. Finally, someone has started.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but these so-called academic departments are made possible when the board of directors (also know as regents or other names) allows it to happen. Governors and state legislatures must pay attention to who is on these boards and insure they are people with conservative values who will order these faux academic departments shuttered. This is what's happening in Florida with the New College (name?) as I understand it. We must get control of our institutions -- you mentioned Roger Scruton, a guy who recognized the vital importance of institutions run by sensible people and not ideologues.
Critics will say, and not without merit, that this is a different form of cancel culture. I believe it is better to fight these departments' untruths with truth. I understand that right now the universities and some segments of the culture at large seem to be captured by the "woke" narrative which muzzles the truth. But if you believe truth will always win -- even if it is a slow slog -- these ideologically captured departments will fail. If they do not, then perhaps they are on the side of truth. My main concern and fear is that censoring these departments will only make their ideology stronger. This effort will be distrusted by half the country just as the effort to censor so-called "right-leaning" ideologies is distrusted by the other half. It is in my opinion that a state-enforced effort to shut down the activist academic departments will be, in retrospect, a huge mistake. A better approach may be to do just what you and others are doing: Create universities that are committed to a classical education without DEI and grievance study departments. Patience will pay off as such universities and their students will rise to the top.
Conservatives who wring their hands and say, "The universities are lost" aren't looking closely enough. PARTICULAR departments are lost while others are merely intimidated.
Excising the cancerous parts will allow the rest to spring back to health. But the cancer must be excised - pulled up by the roots - not temporarily pruned back or tamped down.
I like how you are circling the wagons here and using past history to bolster your arguments Chris R.
I also like your pivot to taking action and ending the critique phase of this movement. I like many, are growing bored of the framing stage that casts a wide net of divergent discovery. Now is the time to converge on action and take out the trash.
Concurrently, I think we need to begin the new dialogue of what does this new pursuit of truth and telos look like. Push it through the same critique phase that leads action. What does the new academic rigor include? How will it be measured?
Mr. Rufo, thank you for this excellent work and the commitment to New College. Thank you for saving this College. Could you also send some expertise, wisdom and backbone to the Sarasota County School Board members!!! We are hiring a superintendent, have any suggestions of candidates that will follow your lead and save Sarasota County Schools!! :)
Thank you for taking on the work of helping to course-correct the education system! You are so right, the conservative fatalistic approach has left hands wringing and a wide open field for the “enemy” to advance. You are right, it’s a mental battle. Allowing something to fall into decay is a choice, and all it takes is courage and a decision to remedy it.
Those were great examples of how other universities made choices to manage departments going off the reservation, so to speak. Universities can stand in their right to enact bold solutions in addition to just identify and bemoan the problems. Here’s to the courage to take that step.
Public defenders of DEI elide the difference between teaching what the tenets of critical studies are and promoting "Critical" viewpoints as true or by-default "normal" (the more common approach - attempting to "normalize" without debate or definition).
There is no legitimate reason to emphasize or include Critical approaches above or more comprehensively than, say, surveying Marxist views (whether orthodox (Lenin, etc.) or "heretical" (Mussolini, Gramsci, etc.). Even this approach applies to a very few disciplines - including it in, say, nursing pedagogy is propagandistic because the subject matter itself does not include the dissection and examination of such ideas.
Basically, outside of philosophy discussions per-se, there is very little reason for such theories to appear. As a confirmation of my statement: who talks about the the rival interpretations of Marxism proposed by Lenin and Mussolini these days? Only philosophy students - because neither version of Marxism is ascendant at this time. It is political ascendancy only which takes Critical Theory out of the Philosophy Department (and very adjacent areas such as history which refer-back to philosophy).
It is precisely the activist push for present and immediate cultural/political ascendancy which accounts for any appearance of Critical Theory outside of a philosophical examination of it, per-se. All else is advocacy - propagation (propaganda).
There is also the systemic risk of DEI compliance officers at all major universities, which permeate the university as a whole. Without aggressive protest and action, the indoctrination of our children which begins in K-12, will be the final blow to whatever remains of America’s shared identity and values based on individual freedom.
Wonderful, Chris! I’ve watched this devolution my entire life. I am 62, was a precocious follower of current events and history. I missed the 60’s, but read all the major 60’s new left literature. Never bought into it; was an NR subscriber at age 20, lol.
By the mid 80’s, it was clear the crazy train was taking off. Like so many, I assumed it would crash and burn from its contradictions, nuttiness and fragility. I thought the Sokol scandal at NYU might have an impact. Instead, it has taken over entire generations of “educated” people.
Just downloaded and printed out the Jaffe article.
I am an executive recruiter and writer. If I can be helpful to you in any fashion, formal or informal, please let me know.
Completely logical idea, makes too much sense and is easy to do. Like with any non-producing major, teach out remaining students and call it a day. However, in today's hysteria-fueled twitterverse and state-run-media messaging the internet would explode with faux rage and not-so-subtle calls for protest and a visit from the national Antifa office.
Knowing the probable reactions, it would take a university board, president and administration that will stick to its principles and actually do the right thing. You and Gov. DeSantis have laid out a viable blueprint that show this can be done. This outcome is not only doable but necessary. Keep grinding!!!!
We must require that critical thinking and debating skills be part of the curriculum AND that a required number of conservative teachers be hired to teach in every academic department.
The roots of DEI are deeply imbedded in culture, too.
https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/the-radicalization-race-philanthropy-and-dei
It is a problematic history, one that is carefully spelled out in the above referenced article. CRT is not some new-fangled concept that was dreamed up over the last few years, but a direct outgrowth of years and years of Marxist ideology imbedded in the American university system. It has also become a lucrative industry, evidenced by the many companies, consultants, training programs, and professional organizations that service academia and corporate America.
DEI is a cancer that has metastasized throughout our institutions. Perhaps there is some way to turn it against itself - the way the healthy immune system attacks malignancy. Continuing to provide real facts about the failure of this system is a good start, but it has to be a persistent and unrelenting pushback. I think, Christopher Rufo is off to a brilliant start!
It's time to defund colleges and universities that prioritize political activism over education. To understand how we got where we are today and why it matters, see "Legacy of Lies" in the latest issue of my Substack at https://2026.substack.com/p/legacy-of-lies
Mostly done w the Jaffa piece, it blows my mind. It is startling how few university presidents fought back in any real way. Hayakawa and Silber are the only ones I can think of.
I grew up in an academic environment, and have deep affection for what it once was. The good news is, there are very very few real revolutionaries among them. Most of them are academics (or admins, lol) because they are afraid of the big bad world.
For years, I’ve been saying we should starve the perverted rabbits. Finally, someone has started.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but these so-called academic departments are made possible when the board of directors (also know as regents or other names) allows it to happen. Governors and state legislatures must pay attention to who is on these boards and insure they are people with conservative values who will order these faux academic departments shuttered. This is what's happening in Florida with the New College (name?) as I understand it. We must get control of our institutions -- you mentioned Roger Scruton, a guy who recognized the vital importance of institutions run by sensible people and not ideologues.
Yeah that recent Stanford spat says it all. Do we even need college anymore? Kidding. Sort of.
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/p/george-orwells-politics-and-the-english
Critics will say, and not without merit, that this is a different form of cancel culture. I believe it is better to fight these departments' untruths with truth. I understand that right now the universities and some segments of the culture at large seem to be captured by the "woke" narrative which muzzles the truth. But if you believe truth will always win -- even if it is a slow slog -- these ideologically captured departments will fail. If they do not, then perhaps they are on the side of truth. My main concern and fear is that censoring these departments will only make their ideology stronger. This effort will be distrusted by half the country just as the effort to censor so-called "right-leaning" ideologies is distrusted by the other half. It is in my opinion that a state-enforced effort to shut down the activist academic departments will be, in retrospect, a huge mistake. A better approach may be to do just what you and others are doing: Create universities that are committed to a classical education without DEI and grievance study departments. Patience will pay off as such universities and their students will rise to the top.
Conservatives who wring their hands and say, "The universities are lost" aren't looking closely enough. PARTICULAR departments are lost while others are merely intimidated.
Excising the cancerous parts will allow the rest to spring back to health. But the cancer must be excised - pulled up by the roots - not temporarily pruned back or tamped down.
I like how you are circling the wagons here and using past history to bolster your arguments Chris R.
I also like your pivot to taking action and ending the critique phase of this movement. I like many, are growing bored of the framing stage that casts a wide net of divergent discovery. Now is the time to converge on action and take out the trash.
Concurrently, I think we need to begin the new dialogue of what does this new pursuit of truth and telos look like. Push it through the same critique phase that leads action. What does the new academic rigor include? How will it be measured?
Mr. Rufo, thank you for this excellent work and the commitment to New College. Thank you for saving this College. Could you also send some expertise, wisdom and backbone to the Sarasota County School Board members!!! We are hiring a superintendent, have any suggestions of candidates that will follow your lead and save Sarasota County Schools!! :)
Thank you for taking on the work of helping to course-correct the education system! You are so right, the conservative fatalistic approach has left hands wringing and a wide open field for the “enemy” to advance. You are right, it’s a mental battle. Allowing something to fall into decay is a choice, and all it takes is courage and a decision to remedy it.
Those were great examples of how other universities made choices to manage departments going off the reservation, so to speak. Universities can stand in their right to enact bold solutions in addition to just identify and bemoan the problems. Here’s to the courage to take that step.
I also leave this timely post by Dr. Robert Malone that reveals where all of this coordinated propaganda is coming from. We must revise our universities, and now is the time. https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/top-universities-tools-of-the-wef
Excellent!
:-)