John Oliver cries 'Nazi' over Christopher Rufo and the conservative renaissance at Florida college

BlazeTV host Christopher Rufo apparently lives rent-free in the head of John Oliver, the English agitpropist who long played second fiddle to the eponymous host of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Oliver melted down in 2022, for instance, not only over Rufo's campaign against radical gender ideology but over his successful efforts to rid American schools of critical race theory. 'Say what you will about — here it comes — the Nazis, but stick with me, credit where it's due.'On Monday, the liberal commentator — whose transvestite-produced HBO show had a defamation suit dropped earlier this month by an Obama judge — targeted Rufo again, this time over the role he has played in New College of Florida's conservative renaissance.Florida under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has managed to break the radical left's stranglehold over the education system, pushing back against critical race theory, LGBT propaganda, and historical revisionism in the classroom; nuking university DEI programs; keeping men out of girls' sports; and eliminating discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin in public institutions.DeSantis' strategic appointments — particularly those he made to New College of Florida's 13-member board of trustees in early 2023 — have been a critical piece of this institutional reconquest, the significance of which is clearly not lost on Oliver.Oliver excitedly caught his audience up, stating that DeSantis appointed six new board members who are political allies including Chris Rufo, the conservative activist who then tweeted, 'We are now over the walls and ready to transform higher education from within.'After characterizing Rufo as a cartoon supervillain and randomly joking about masturbation, Oliver stated, Rufo is constantly sounding the alarm over the woke indoctrination of young people, but being appointed as a trustee at New College actually represented something new for him: a chance to put his ideas into practice. And as he explained at the time, his goal was nothing less than to offer a blueprint for what conservatives could then do for education nationwide.John Oliver just can't get enough, Rufo responded on X. This is his third story calling me a 'supervillain.' I take it as a compliment.RELATED: Trump’s Justice Department is shining a light on woke universities — finally Thomas Simonetti/Washington Post/Getty ImagesIn addition to bemoaning New College's transformation into an exemplar for other institutions aspiring to break free from their woke encumbrances, Oliver also complained on Monday that the liberal arts college axed its gender studies program. The liberal host made a note of Rufo bragging they'd gotten rid of a 'massive' and 'radical' department that indoctrinates students.Rufo motioned at an August 2023 board meeting to begin to dissolve the program, stating online, We are the first public university in America to begin rolling back the encroachment of queer theory and gender pseudoscience into academic life. After the board voted 7-3 in favor, the college's only full-time gender studies professor — a woman who identifies as a man — subsequently submitted a resignation letter, thereby evidencing her political bias and ideological capture.In a letter dated August 2023, the radical professor wrote, Eliminating Gender Studies is a reactionary attempt to prevent cultural shifts that scare you. Gender has changed before, and it is changing again. You can’t keep your kids from being gay or trans.In addition to whining about the demise of the school's gender indoctrination program, Oliver melted down on Monday over the college's 2024 disposal of propaganda — some of it apparently damaged by Tropical Storm Debby — from the defunct Gender and Diversity Center's library, likening it to Nazi book-burnings.Oliver highlighted an Aug. 16, 2024, tweet in which Rufo wrote, We abolished the gender studies program. Now we’re throwing out the trash.The British propagandist said in response on his show, Say what you will about — here it comes — the Nazis, but stick with me, credit where it's due, I know when the Nazis went after books, they went big.Ideologues capturing something that they hate, claiming that they want to fix it, and then destroying it instead, Oliver said later in his tirade. But seldom has that move been more blatant than watching people talk about great debates and classical education, only to then drive away faculty, refer to books as trash, and assemble a veritable Avengers of D-list conservatives, celebrities, creeps, and weirdos.New College officials such as David Rohrbacher, provost and vice president of academic affairs, wholly rejected Oliver's framing.What I’m proud about over the last three years is that in addition to many, many new ideas, new projects, new policies, new educational strategies, Rohrbacher told the Free Press, New College remains the college it was in terms of that model of experimental learning and experiential learning.Multiple professors told the FP that while the college now has fewer radical course offerings, the new leadership does not police what they teach.New College President Richard Corcoran emphasized that the great liberal-arts schools that are not indoctrinating, that have great [test] scores and get great students — yeah, that would be who we’d like to be.Corcoran noted further that most of the ideological warriors have left and the people the school has been hiring are a who's who of faculty in the history of the college.Oliver's panicked episode aired in the wake of a deal reached late last month by state lawmakers, which, if finalized, will transfer control of the University of South Florida's Sarasota-Manatee campus to New College.Like Blaze News? 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