Biden Department of Education Opens Civil Rights Investigation into New College of Florida over ‘Misgendering’

US President Joe Biden speaks during a Pride Month celebration event at the White House in
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Alana Mastrangelo

President Joe Biden’s Department of Education has opened a civil rights investigation into New College of Florida, following a complaint alleging, in part, that author and New College of Florida board member Christopher Rufo “misgendered” the college’s former Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) director, who uses “ze/zir” pronouns.

Rufo took to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Friday to share a purported complaint sent to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, stating, “Rufo mocked and misgendered New College’s Director of OOIE, Rosario-Hernandez, after ze was summarily fired.”

“Rufo pressed criminal charges against student Catherine ‘Libby’ Harrity for allegedly spitting at him,” the complaint contnued.

“In two tweets about the case (charges were eventually dropped), he asserted that Harrity uses they/them pronouns and then pointedly referred to Harrity as ‘she’ in the next sentence. Harrity also uses she/her pronouns, so the intended insult reads as particularly belabored,” the complaint added.

In a follow-up post, Rufo said that “the initial civil rights complaint included as evidence screenshots of my tweets with @elonmusk — and a photograph alleging that the administration had removed ‘gender neutral’ graffiti from a bathroom wall.”

“This is the petty tyranny of DEI ideology,” Rufo added.

“The complainants also alleged that defunding the DEI department and the Gender Studies Program constitutes a violation of civil rights law. This is an outrageous attempt to subvert democratic governance and entrench left-wing ideological power under the guise of civil rights,” Rufo wrote in another follow-up post.

In a blog post, Rufo elaborated by explaining that the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ investigation is over alleged “discrimination on the basis of disability.”

In addition to “misgendering” the former DEI director, Rufo said that unnamed “students, faculty, and staff” are claiming that the college’s trustees and administrators violated civil rights law by removing “gender neutral” signage from bathrooms, and defunding the DEI and gender studies programs.

“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,” Rufo 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,” Rufo added.

The New College of Florida board member went on to say, “We are ready for the fight,” adding that “when Governor DeSantis appointed the new board of trustees, he told us: ‘If the media isn’t attacking you, you’re not doing your job.’ The same could be said of the Biden Administration.”

Earlier this year, Rufo — a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and prominent anti-Critical Race Theory activist — was appointed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) to the Board of Trustees of the New College of Florida.

At that time, Rufo announced that his goal was to abolish “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and replace it with “equity, merit, and colorblindness,” and hire new faculty with expertise in “constitutionalism, free enterprise, civic virtue, family life, religious freedom, and American principles.”

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.

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