One of the city’s most controversial publicly funded programs is under renewed scrutiny after a conservative activist published a takedown in a right-leaning journal.

Christopher Rufo — whose bona fides include influencing the ouster of a Harvard University president and offering a reward to prove that Haitian migrants in Ohio ate cats — this week published a story (opens in new tab) in City Journal titled “Inside San Francisco’s racialist slush fund.” In it, Rufo admonished Mayor Daniel Lurie and the city for potentially spending public funds on organizations that could violate civil rights law by operating race-based programs.

The article dwells on nonprofits supported by the city’s Dream Keeper Initiative, which was created in 2021 to serve Black and other underserved communities but was shelved after a series of corruption scandals involving its administrator. The nonprofit’s mission of providing services to the city’s declining Black population was continued under Lurie through the Human Rights Commission. The commission is in the process of selecting recipients for $36 million in funding to be allocated over three years.

Rubo called for a federal investigation into the program and suggested that taxpayer funds would be misspent (opens in new tab) on “ancient Egyptian healing rituals” and “massage therapy.” The story triggered an online firestorm. Harmeet Dhillon, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and a former San Francisco attorney, reacted on X (opens in new tab) with a post that said simply: “What.”

The Department of Justice said it would not comment on the existence or status of an investigation. Lurie’s office referred questions to the city attorney’s office, which defended the Human Rights Commission.

“San Francisco designs its programs and policies to be open and available to all,” the city attorney’s office said in a statement.

Rufo appears to have latched onto a list of organizations (opens in new tab) that have passed the initial review for getting funding from the Human Rights Commission, which oversees the request for proposals and issuance of the grants. Sources within City Hall said none of those funding choices have been finalized.

On Feb. 9, the commission released a list of groups and programs that had received initial approval (opens in new tab) for this year’s funding. The document states that services are intended for communities “including but not limited to” specific racial and ethnic groups — phrasing meant to ensure inclusivity. However, some of the nonprofits featured in Rufo’s article appear to focus on particular communities.

For example, SisterWeb, which addresses pregnancy- and birth-related health inequities experienced by Black women, is set to receive $600,000 over two years. Its eligibility criteria (opens in new tab) note that clients should self-identify as Black, but no one will be turned away because of their race.

Rufo’s article also highlighted Because Black Is Still Beautiful, one of the organizations listed for initial approval, which has hosted events offering massage therapy and African ancestry DNA testing to formerly incarcerated Black women. A basic Google search shows the group offering massage services (opens in new tab) at past events, but it’s unclear if public funding was involved.

Representatives of neither group responded to requests for comment. Mawuli Tugbenyoh, executive director of the Human Rights Commission, also declined to comment.

Rufo also criticized Lurie for campaigning as a moderate but supporting the Dream Keeper Initiative. During the run-up to the 2024 election, The Standard learned that the program’s administrator, Sheryl Davis, was sharing a home with a nonprofit executive whose organization had received millions of dollars in Dream Keeper contracts. Lurie responded to the scandal by stating that his predecessor, Mayor London Breed, who was friends with Davis, had “handed a blank check to her closest allies with zero oversight.”

Since becoming mayor, Lurie has walked a careful line by supporting the Dream Keeper Initiative while also merging the Human Rights Commission, which oversaw the program, and the Department on the Status of Women, another scandal-plagued agency, into a single department. 

Sources within City Hall said nonprofits may describe a range of activities on their websites or fund those activities through other sources, but the city maintains that its contracts contain clear language specifying what public funding can be used for.