Dept. of Education investigates conservative scholar’s ‘misgendering’ of DEI official

‘Gender neutral signage’ also removed from bathrooms

The federal Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is looking into conservative activist Christopher Rufo for, among other things, “misgendering” a diversity official at Florida’s New College.

According to a post on Rufo’s website, “unnamed students, faculty, and staff” at the school filed a complaint alleging New College trustees and administrators “violated civil rights law by removing ‘gender neutral’ signage from bathrooms, defunding the DEI and gender studies programs, and ‘misgendering’ the former DEI director, who uses ‘ze/zir’ pseudo-pronouns.”

The complaint says Rufo “mocked and misgendered New College’s Director of OOIE, [Yoleidi] Rosario-Hernandez [pictured], after ze was summarily fired.”

It also alleges “newly-hired staff members have verbally attacked New College students, parents, and faculty, instituted discriminatory policies targeting LGBTQ+ students, and taken other actions overtly hostile towards New College students, faculty, and staff on the basis of race, gender, religion, and disability.”

These actions include:

— replac[ing] the gender neutral bathroom signs with ones “indicating that only men and women, or ‘families’ were welcome in the bathrooms.”

— “personally insult[ing] specific New College students, parents, and faculty based on perceived disability and gender prejudice.” Insults included “hysterical,” “mentally ill,” “intentionally misusing pronouns” and “otherwise denying the individual’s gender identity.”

— “lowering academic standards” in order to enroll more men.

— “removal of all inclusive and diversity-focused content from Admissions marketing materials and the College’s website.”

— canceling the Africana Studies Living Learning Community and changing the name of the Pride LLC to “Great Books.”

— abolishing the Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence.

— “fir[ing] multiple LGBTQ staff without notice.”

MORE: New College’s only full-time gender studies professor quits

Rufo ripped the complaint, saying it had “no merit.”

“This is a brazen attempt to subvert the democratic governance of New College and entrench left-wing ideological programs under the guise of civil rights law,” he said.

“Although the complaint is wholly without merit, this does not mean it will automatically fail. The Biden Administration has demonstrated repeatedly that it is willing to weaponize the federal law enforcement apparatus against school board parents and other conservative reformers.”

This is the most important part of the complaint. If the Biden DoE is able to establish a precedent that abolishing a DEI office is in itself a violation of civil rights, then all public institutions will be required to maintain what are in effect, political commissars pic.twitter.com/M3LPQ0aU4L

— Punished Armen (@not_tooloee) September 8, 2023