Washington Post issues correction after activist Rufo slams paper's 'inaccuracies and flat-out lies'

The Washington Post issued a correction after conservative activist Chris Rufo slammed the paper for publishing what he called "flat-out lies" in an article about how Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) appointed him and five other people to the New College of Florida Board of Trustees.

Rufo, a Manhattan Institute fellow, said Post reporter Valerie Strauss included "distortions, inaccuracies, and flat-out lies" in her article Saturday titled, "DeSantis moves to turn a progressive Fla. college into a conservative one."

In a Twitter thread early Sunday morning, Rufo debunked five claims the paper made, including allegations that he has insisted systemic racism does not exist in the United States.

"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 Post wrote in a correction Sunday.

Rufo also clarified the Post's claim that DeSantis prohibited Florida businesses from providing employee diversity training. Rufo said the law only prohibits "trainings that promote racial scapegoating and certain enumerated divisive concepts, including the idea that one race is inherently superior to another."

"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 Post said.

The D.C.-based paper had to issue a clarification last year on another piece that targeted Rufo's work fighting Critical Race Theory, which is the idea that racism is rampant in every major U.S. institution.