Chris Rufo scorches the Washington Post for its latest CRT 'lies,' paper forced to issue correction
'Democracy dies when the media lies,' Rufo said
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Chris Rufo scorched the Washington Post on Sunday in a lengthy Twitter thread that called out the news outlet for its "lies" about his work.
Rufo, who is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, called out Washington Post reporter Valerie Strauss for her article titled, "DeSantis moves to turn a progressive Fla. college into a conservative one." He said Strauss made several "distortions" and "flat-out lies" about his work.
"Last year, I forced the Washington Post to retract a blizzard of lies about my work. Now, the paper has dispatched another hack, @valeriestrauss, to push a fresh round of distortions, inaccuracies, and flat-out lies," Rufo began his Twitter thread. "Let's debunk them one by one."
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The first "lie" he called out was The Post for reportedly denying that critical race theory is being taught in schools.
"Lie #1. The WaPo tries to revive the long-debunked claim that ‘critical race theory isn't taught in schools.’ I've provided them with reams of evidence and *the WaPo itself* has published multiple articles admitting that critical race theory is being taught in K-12 schools."
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"Lie #2. The WaPo invents ideas and then attributes them to me with no evidence or citations. Strauss puts words in my mouth and then reports them as if they were facts. Very dishonest," Rufo continued.
In the Washington Post article published Saturday, Strauss wrote, "Critical race theory is a decades-old academic discipline that investigates systemic racism in the United States, which Rufo and others insist doesn’t exist; they say racism is the act of individuals alone."
Rufo responded by saying he never suggested systemic racism doesn’t exist and that the Post reporter put words in his mouth.
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"I have never claimed that '[systemic racism] doesn't exist' because ‘racism is the act of individuals alone,’" Rufo wrote to the Post.
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He told the Post that the law in the United States doesn't currently discriminate against people of color except for Asian Americans when it comes to college admissions.
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"Furthermore, I have never claimed that ‘racism is the act of individuals alone.’ Strauss simple makes it up out of thin air," he continued.
The Post updated their story to read, "critical race theory is a decades-old academic discipline that investigates systemic racism in the United States, which Rufo and others insist doesn’t work through American institutions to discriminate against many marginalized groups."
The third claim Rufo highlighted was in reference to an executive order from former President Trump.
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"Lie #3. The WaPo flat-out lies about Trump's anti-CRT executive order. It's likely that Strauss never bothered to read it—if she had, she would have easily understood that her claim here is false," Rufo tweeted.
Strauss claimed that Trump signed an executive order that canceled all federal diversity training programs.
"Trump had signed an executive order canceling all federal diversity training programs," she wrote. Since Rufo called out the Post, the story has been updated to "Trump had signed an executive order restricting federal diversity training programs."
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The fourth reportedly smudged the timeline of events around the executive order.
"Lie #4. The WaPo brazenly fabricates the timeline of events surrounding my work with President Trump on the anti-CRT executive order," Rufo wrote. "Strauss did not bother to look up the dates at all—she went with her own fiction."
The final "lie" from the Post that Rufo called out was one about the Stop WOKE Act in Florida.
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"Lie #5. The WaPo also manages to lie about my work on the DeSantis Stop WOKE Act," he wrote. "Again, it's likely that Strauss simply did not read the law—if she had, she would have known that her reporting here is not true."
The article originally stated, "DeSantis signed into law legislation that also barred businesses from providing diversity training to employees, but a Florida judge last year blocked parts of the law."
It was later changed to "DeSantis signed into law legislation that also restricted the diversity trainings that business could provide to employees, but a Florida judge last year blocked parts of the law."
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After Rufo contact the Post, the article was updated with a correction at the top of the article.
"A previous version of this story called Christopher Rufo a Republican activist who denies the existence of systemic racism. He is a conservative activist who has said American law is not currently discriminating against racial minorities. The story also clarifies language about diversity trainings used by the federal government and businesses in Florida, which were not technically forbidden but were broadly restricted in what they could say about systemic racism," the correction stated.
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Rufo reiterated that this is not the first time he has called out the Washington Post for how it reports his work.
"Last time the WaPo came after me, the paper eventually admitted to fabricating a timeline, retracted or added six full paragraphs, reversed a key claim, and failed to produce evidence of a falsified quotation," he wrote. "Extremely embarrassing for them."
"I have reached out to the editors at the paper requesting corrections to these errors. I believe that WaPo subscriptions have plummeted in recent years because the public is tired of the paper's sloppiness, inaccuracies, and falsehoods," he continued. "Democracy dies when the media lies."
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