Anti-woke grifter Rufo misstates his graduate school credential and undergraduate achievement

There's a massive difference in selectivity between Harvard University Extension School and Harvard University, which New College trustee Rufo has long sought to blur in his bios.

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In the least surprising revelation ever, Christopher Rufo does not have a Masters of Arts degree from Harvard, as he once claimed in his Manhattan Institute bio. He has, instead, a Master of Liberal Arts (MLA) from Harvard Extension School.

Indeed, this anti-woke grifter is continuing to misstate his educational credentials, even after very very quietly correcting one aspect of his misstatement — as I’ll show you in a moment.

As anyone who remotely follows Rufo knows, this is the kind of credential misstatement he would summon the New York Times to pursue if the person doing the misstating was black or a woman. And the useless NYT would dutifully obey. I’m sure they will find a way to avoid this particular misstatement.

But Rufo’s fellow trustees can and should confront him with this at the next meeting.

Rufo claims undergraduate achievement he did not earn

Harvard instructs graduates of Harvard University Extension School to spell out “Harvard University Extension School” on resumes and bios because its sees a meaningful distinction between “Harvard University Extension School” and Harvard’s traditional graduate schools.

As you can see, selectivity of admission is the core difference in these Harvard graduate programs. It’s a lot easier to get into “Harvard University Extension School” than traditional Harvard.

Thus, Rufo’s conflation of degree credentials claims a level of achievement in admission that he did not earn.

It misrepresents the quality of Rufo’s undergraduate performance, suggesting that it was strong enough to earn admission to Harvard’s highly selective graduate schools. It was not.

Rufo’s misleading claim dilutes Harvard’s brand, which is why Harvard cares about how graduates claim this credential, I suspect. I’ve posted Harvard’s direction in how to refer to the extension school at the end of this article.

The “never admit” grifter admits to something

Is this a big deal? Rufo, a bombastic Bad Ken 99.9 percent of the time, seems to think so. He very very quietly acknowledged that his Manhattan Institute bio misstated his education credential by very very quietly having it altered.

In doing so, Rufo violated the #1 tenet of the modern “conservative” and “anti-woke” grifts — the #1 tenet of Rufoism: always loudly refuse to admit or acknowledge anything damaging to the grift. And yet, here is Rufo is admitting.

Hat tip to Twitter user Noah Dahl for the receipts on all of this. Here’s the after:

Here’s the before:

So yeah, I think this probably is a big deal in the world of credentialism, a world I am pretty thoroughly indifferent to when grifting is not involved.

I’ve sent a note to the New College flack, posted above, asking if the college plans to address Rufo’s ongoong misstatement of both his graduate school credential and undergraduate performance.

Hers’s how Rufo’s New College bio reads today:

At the very least, New College should force Rufo to spell out “Harvard University Extension School,” as Harvard University demands.

It will be a deep, grift-wounding humiliation for Rufo to have to write out “Harvard University Extension School” on his bio. I’m very curious if New College will make him do it. If the college won’t, I hope the two decent trustee members will ask him point blank: “why, oh brave culture warrior, are you so afraid to accurately describe your master’s degree and undergraduate achievement in public?”

You might ask about Rufo’s Ricketts conflict, too

On the off chance useless NYT reporters come snooping about Rufo’s credential misstatement, they might stay for all the Ricketts action. I wrote about this in great detail a few weeks ago here. See the article pasted below:

And here is the video of the trustee meeting that served as the basis for that article.

At about 1:15:00, you can hear Rufo describe his Harvard University Extension School experience briefly, without noting that he was part of the less selective Harvard University Extension School — again suggesting undergraduate achievement he did not earn.

Perhaps more significantly, you can hear Rufo says this about how billionaire Joe Ricketts came to collaborate with New College on a fledgling, untested online curriculum product New College is planning to launch next month, supposedly.

I know Joe Ricketts. He’s a friend … and [I] was able to connect him with this opportunity.

The terms of “connect him this opportunity” are unclear. Rufo had a chance to address them during this meeting, but chose instead to yell and filibuster at the two female trustees who expressed concern about possible trustee conflicts. You can see that disgraceful Rufo performance in this clip:

In expressing those conflict concerns, the two board members were literally following the guidance of the New College Board of Trustee handbook.

Key excerpt:

At the very least, 3(a) seems pretty applicable on its face. By the way, as a trustee, Rufo is a “state officer” of Florida, subject to all our state’s ethics rules and to formal ethics complaints, as the New College handbook makes clear.

Also, by the way, useless NYT reporters, you might also take notice that the hilariously overpaid grifter president of New College, Richard Corcoran, oversaw a massive Florida charter school scandal that is now subject of a federal grand jury investigation which has the potential to touch virtually major politician and education official in this state over the last five years. See background here:

DoE/Jefferson scandal goes nuclear; feds subpoena what all the governor's grifters blatantly covered up

Ride it while it lasts, Chris

Ironically, considering the time and effort I’ve spent on these two Rufo articles, I’m thoroughly uninterested in him. He’s just another grifter, a little farther down the grift value chain than young Austin Hurst, who I introduced you to earlier today.

But they’re essentially the same person — lazy bros trolling for rich guy money by owning the libs. Rufo’s need to overstate both undergrad and grad school credentials is a pretty good example of that.

Rufos, like Zieglers, always come and go. This one will too.

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Here is how Harvard instructs Chris Rufo to state his educational credential: