Florida Lottery

It isn’t fair, it isn’t right

[The plaza in front of the Jane Bancroft Cook Library of the New College of Florida in Sarasota, after Ron DeSantis’ transformation of that institution. Students, looking rather like the seedy, over-aged “teenagers” in Brian DePalma’s Carrie, walk back and forth. Joining them are BARI WEISS, wearing white wedge shoes with cork heels, a tartan A-line skirt, crisp white blouse, and an open pink cashmere ruffle edge cardigan, and CHRISTOPHER RUFO, wearing a light brown corduroy three-piece suit, a collarless white shirt, scapular ostentatiously flopped out over the vest, and brown sandals.]

WEISS: Well, this is just like a regular college campus! Except with that Mission-style flavor — how fun! It’s like USC!

RUFO: Well, they can’t all be Columbia.

WEISS: Yes, I guess that’s true.

RUFO: [Coldly] I meant that as a snide remark.

[WEISS lightly touches RUFO’s arm, which causes his expression to become even more distant and supercilious.]

WEISS: Ha ha, you. Now, let’s not pick on old Columbia! There are lots of problems with most colleges, thanks to wokeness! Hey, let’s talk to some students! Let’s just stop one and talk to them!

[RUFO whistles shrilly; several students look at him; he gestures to a slightly shaggy YOUNG MAN who comes over.]

RUFO: I am Christopher Rufo from the Board of Trustees.

[Vaguely smiling, the YOUNG MAN’s eyes flit from WEISS to RUFO and back.]

YOUNG MAN: Oh, OK. Hey. Hi.

RUFO: “Sir.”

YOUNG MAN: Sorry. Sir.

RUFO: What’s your name?

YOUNG MAN: Howard Djalikakik, sir.

RUFO: Howard, are you coming from class?

YOUNG MAN: Yes, I am.

RUFO: What class?

YOUNG MAN: Intro to Great American Thought, sir.

RUFO: [To WEISS] That’s one of the classes I insisted on. [to YOUNG MAN] What did you discuss in today’s class, Howard?

YOUNG MAN: Uh, sir, William Buckley, the National Lampoon —

RUFO: National Review.

YOUNG MAN: OK, ha ha National Review, sir. Aaaand that was mainly it, sir, it was, like, about how it wasn’t racist, sir, and it also was about national —

RUFO: [Increasingly pushy] Excuse me, Howard, what do you mean, “not racist”?

YOUNG MAN: [Shrugs] Like it wasn’t racist, except, well, sir, some people said it was.

RUFO: “Some people said it was”? What people, Howard?

YOUNG MAN: [Smiling more broadly; wags a finger] Oooh, OK, OK ha ha you’re not gonna get me with that one, no sir! We don’t talk about who says we’re racist, because that gives them oxygen!

[While most students keep walking, a knot of about a dozen have stopped and are watching and listening.]

RUFO: No! I mean yes, of course that’s right when outsiders ask you but I’m on the Board of Trustees.

YOUNG MAN: Well, that’s an argument from authority.

RUFO: Yes, because I’m an authority!

YOUNG MAN: Yeah but argument from authority is bad!

RUFO: No it isn’t! Not if you’re a real authority! I’m a real authority! I was appointed by Governor DeSantis!

YOUNG MAN: [Studying RUFO with eyes narrowed] Yeah, OK, but see this was exactly was Professor Skolowicz warned us about —

RUFO: Skolowicz! That old hack!

YOUNG MAN: Hey, Skolly’s chill, he fought Communism!  

RUFO: In Poland! He was in a labor union! You can’t trust people like that!

YOUNG MAN: Hey look, sorry, dude, I’m just not having —

RUFO: “Dude!” How dare you!

[RUFO pulls out his iPhone, starts filming the YOUNG MAN, who bolts. Some of the spectators move on, but a few, harder looking ones stick around.]

WEISS: Well, that was interesting.

RUFO: Yes, well, you won’t report any of that, Miss Weiss.

WEISS: [Putting her hands on her hips] What? Now look, I’m sympathetic to what you’re doing, but as a professional truth-teller —

[Someone in the crowd gives a loud wolf whistle. Someone else goes “Mrrrowr!” WEISS looks around.]

Excuse me? Who was that?

VOICE FROM THE CROWD: [Exaggerated nasal voice] “Oh I’m sympathetic to what you’re doing!”

[Laughter.]

ANOTHER VOICE FROM THE CROWD: Fucking bitch.

WEISS: Who said that? Who called me a bitch! [To RUFO] Well, Chris, some classical education you’re offering here!

RUFO: That’s Mr. Rufo to you.

[WEISS looks at him, stunned. Pause.]

SOMEONE IN THE CROWD: That’s right, bitch!      

[Laughter.]

RUFO: You will address me as Mr. Rufo.

WEISS: You have got to be kidding me!

TWO VOICES FROM THE CROWD: [Exaggerated nasal voice] You have got to be kidding me!

[Laughter.]

RUFO: I mean, bad enough you come here as an open lesbian —

[Loud, ascending “whoooOOOOOO” from the crowd, which we notice has doubled in size.]

[louder] — and now you try to undermine the authority of the College Elders!

VOICE FROM THE CROWD: Fucking kike!

RUFO: [Raising a hand admonitorily] Now, now, we all support Israel. But we also support making America great again and I think we know what we think of lesbian groomers here at the New College of Florida!

CROWD: Groo-mer! Groo-mer! Groo-mer!

[The chant swells; panicked, WEISS charges the doors of the library and tries to get in; a thick-set woman wearing a tweed suit, pinned-up white hair, and horn-rimmed glasses — a costume that in the mid-20th Century would signify a “spinster” — emerges from the front door and pushes her away.]

THICK-SET WOMAN: Get lost, troublemaker!

[Their chant rising to a bestial wail, the crowd folds in on WEISS. CURTAIN.]