Two charts demonstrating how far-right is the board of advisors of FAIR

When Christopher Rufo announced the creation of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, he claimed it was a coalition of liberals, moderates and conservatives and he illustrated this claim with an image of the FAIR board of advisors.

As you might expect from a cynical, right-wing operative who takes money from Charles Koch, this claim was a big fat lie. The board was very right-leaning then, and it's only become more right-leaning ever since.

Having followed the antics of the Intellectual Dark Web for several years now, I recognized at a glance that the board was packed with members of the Intellectual Dark Web, Quillette authors and other promoters of race pseudo-science, and a little research proved that all current members of the board but one have a connection to at least one right-wing cause or organization.

Then recently, the New Yorker published an article that made it clear that Rufo is probably the Kochtopus flunky of the year, thanks to his cynical and successful efforts to build up the previously obscure "critical race theory" into a Republican target of hatred and hysteria.

New York Magazine also ran a critique of Rufo:

Rufo’s role is clear. He takes critical-race theory as a concept, strips it of all meaning, and repurposes it as a catchall for white grievances. “The goal,” he tweeted, “is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.” In an interview with the Post, he said the tweet described an “obvious” approach: “If you want to see public policy outcomes you have to run a public persuasion campaign.”

I think it's likely FAIR itself is funded by Koch, considering how many Koch employees are on the board, and also because the one issue that unites the FAIR board of advisors is opposition to critical race theory, as this table demonstrates.

I think it's likely that you don't get on the board of advisors of FAIR unless you vow your undying opposition to critical race theory, but in this table I only included those board members who are on the public record opposing CRT - but I'd be willing to bet that Ajouz, Davis, Hill, Keig and Kors just haven't gotten around to discussing CRT on social media, or I missed their public declarations somehow.

Alexander Lloyd makes clear how important Critical Race Theory hysteria was in his decision to join the FAIR board of advisors.

The closest FAIR has to a liberal is Lisa Feldsher, who is the only board member not in the table. Feldsher does not have much social media presence, but she's not exactly what you would call a flaming progressive. Her political issues are anti-Semitism and the standard right-wing trope, if liberals and Hollywood really cared about social justice they would solve problems even in places where they have no power to make changes while at the same time implying that Islam is the main source of homophobic violence in the world.

I created a second chart, which is less granular than the table. In this pie chart I matched each FAIR board member with one affiliation. Since this web site is devoted to criticizing the IDW, if they are a named member of the IDW, they are counted as IDW even if they have several other affiliations. 

The next tier is a Koch organization affiliation, then a Quillette byline, then a connection to a right-wing organization like The Federalist or they are known for right-wing positions, like Megyn Kelly, Bari Weiss and Andrew Sullivan. 

Finally if they have no other affiliations (that I have discovered yet), they are counted as anti-CRT. Lisa Feldsher is counted as "Other" although I'd bet serious money she also is opposed to CRT.

The data make it inescapably clear, that FAIR is a far-right organization, judging by its board of advisors.