{{Short description|American author}} {{Infobox academic | name = Fredrik deBoer | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1981|6|2}}<ref>{{Cite web|last=DeBoer|first=Freddie|title=Losing It|url=https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/losing-it|access-date=2023-12-29 |website=freddiedeboer.substack.com|date=2 June 2022 |url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230823041836/https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/losing-it|archive-date=2023-08-23}}</ref> | birth_place = Middletown, Connecticut, U.S. | other_names = Freddie deBoer | education = {{ubl|Central Connecticut State University (BA)|University of Rhode Island (MA)|Purdue University (PhD)}} | thesis_title = The CLA+ and the Two Cultures: Writing Assessment and Educational Testing | thesis_url = https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations/1358/ | thesis_year = 2015 | doctoral_advisor = Richard Johnson-Sheehan | occupation = Author | period = 2008–present | discipline = English literature | sub_discipline = Composition studies, educational assessment, higher education policy | website = {{official URL}} }} '''Fredrik deBoer''' (born June 2, 1981) is an American left-wing author and cultural critic known for his heterodox commentary on education policy, social justice, and mental health.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Author|url=http://us.macmillan.com/author/|access-date=2021-08-17|website=US Macmillan}}</ref><ref name="Fisher">{{Cite web|last=Fisher|first=Anthony L.|title=''Cult of Smart'' author Fredrik deBoer on the taboo of admitting some kids just aren't good at school, why 'equality of opportunity' is bunk, and why he believes in a culture of forgiveness over cancellation|url=https://www.businessinsider.com/cult-of-smart-author-fredrik-deboer-schools-marxism-cancel-culture-2020-10|access-date=2021-08-17|website=Business Insider}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Swaim|first=Barton|date=2020-08-18|title=''The Cult of Smart'' Review: Social Justice Goes to School|work=The Wall Street Journal|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-cult-of-smart-review-social-justice-goes-to-school-11597792293|access-date=2021-08-17}}</ref><ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8gyaXiQG4M The Black Lives Matter movement: Has its moment passed? | 5 Things - USA Today on YouTube]</ref><ref>[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/09/04/the-blm-movement-what-if-anything-changed-5-things-podcast/70760021007/ The BLM movement: What if, anything, changed? 5 Things podcast - USA Today]</ref>
== Early life and education == DeBoer was born in Middletown, Connecticut on June 2, 1981 to Lois (née Tinkham) and Fredrik Eugene "Fritz" deBoer (1937–1997), a professor of theater at Wesleyan University, and was raised there alongside his two brothers and sister.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Agency |first=InkWell Management Literary |title=Fredrik deBoer |url=https://inkwellmanagement.com/client/fredrik-deboer |access-date=2026-04-19 |website=InkWell Management Literary Agency |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Foley |first=Kathy |date=2011 |title=Fredrik deBoer |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41306510 |journal=Asian Theatre Journal |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=475–482 |issn=0742-5457}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=1997-05-14 |title=DEBOER. FREDRIK E. “FRITS” DEBOER |url=https://www.courant.com/1997/05/14/deboer-fredrik-e-frits-deboer/ |access-date=2026-04-19 |website=Hartford Courant |language=en-US}}</ref>
DeBoer earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in English at Central Connecticut State University, his Master of Arts degree in writing and rhetoric at the University of Rhode Island, and his Doctor of Philosophy degree in English at Purdue University.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Fredrik deBoer|url=http://newamerica.org/our-people/fredrik-deboer/|access-date=2021-08-12|website=New America}}</ref> His dissertation was titled ''The CLA+ and the Two Cultures: Writing Assessment and Educational Testing''.<ref>{{Cite thesis|last=Deboer<!-- sic -->|first=Fredrik B.|date=May 2015|title=The CLA+ and the Two Cultures: Writing Assessment and Educational Testing|type=PhD thesis|url=https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_dissertations/1358|publisher=Purdue University}}</ref>
== Views and career == DeBoer identifies himself as a "Marxist of an old-school variety".
DeBoer has written for magazines, newspapers and websites.<ref>{{Cite magazine|title=Articles by Fredrik deBoer |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/author/fredrik-deboer/|access-date=2021-08-12|magazine=Foreign Policy}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine|title=Articles by Fredrik deBoer|url=https://www.currentaffairs.org/author/fredrik-deboer|access-date=2021-08-12|magazine=Current Affairs}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Freddie deBoer|url=https://www.salon.com/writer/freddie_deboer|access-date=2021-08-12|work=Salon.com}}</ref> Topics include American education policy, cancel culture, and police reform.<ref name="Fisher" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=Homan|first=Timothy R.|date=2020-08-02|title=Author Fredrik DeBoer calls for rethinking the push to prioritize college|url=https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/509986-author-fredrik-deboer-calls-for-rethinking-the-push-to-prioritize-college|access-date=2021-08-17|newspaper=The Hill}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine|last=Callard|first=Agnes|author-link=Agnes Callard|date=2020-09-08|title=A More Perfect Meritocracy|url=http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality-philosophy-religion/agnes-callard-more-perfect-meritocracy|access-date=2021-08-17|magazine=Boston Review}}</ref> He was the communications editor for ''Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy'' until 2017.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2017-08-24|title=Index of issue 22.1 (Fall 2017) – Kairos Staff|magazine=Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy|url=http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/|access-date=2021-08-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170824075554/http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/|archive-date=August 24, 2017}}</ref>
DeBoer's book, ''The Cult of Smart'', was published in 2020 by All Points Books.<ref name="macmillan">{{Cite web|title=''The Cult of Smart'' – Fredrik deBoer|url=https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250200372/the-cult-of-smart|access-date=2021-08-16|website=US Macmillan}}</ref> Gideon Lewis-Kraus, writing for ''The New Yorker'', says the book "argues that the education-reform movement has been trammelled by its willful ignorance of genetic variation." Lewis-Kraus groups deBoer with "hereditarian left" authors such as Kathryn Paige Harden and Eric Turkheimer in their shared emphasis on the importance of recognizing the heritability of intelligence when formulating social policy.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Lewis-Kraus |first1=Gideon |title=Can Progressives Be Convinced that Genetics Matters? |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/can-progressives-be-convinced-that-genetics-matters |access-date=September 16, 2021|magazine=The New Yorker|date=September 3, 2021}}</ref> Nathan J. Robinson, the editor-in-chief of the left-wing, progressive ''Current Affairs'', vehemently disputed the accuracy of deBoer's position, saying "the central argument of the book is not just wrong, but wrong in the strongest possible sense of that term."<ref name=Robinson>{{cite magazine|last1=Robinson |first1=Nathan J. |author1-link=Nathan J. Robinson |title=We Don't Know Our Potential|url=https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2020/09/we-dont-know-our-potential |access-date=September 16, 2021|magazine=Current Affairs|date=September 20, 2020}}</ref> His next book, critical of individuals and institutions taking advantage of Black Lives Matter, ''How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement'' (his preferred title being ''No Justice, No Peace, No Progress''),<ref>[https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/10/17/how-elites-captured-the-social-justice-movement How elites captured the social justice movement|On Point - WBUR]</ref><ref>[https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/how-elites-ate-the-social-justice-movement-review-left-against-itself-ca60a317 'How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement' Review: Left Against Itself - The Wall Street Journal]</ref> was published in 2023.
DeBoer has been a teacher at both the high school and college level.<ref name="Fisher" />
DeBoer has written publicly about his struggle with bipolar disorder.<ref>[https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/five-years-in-recovery Five Years in Recovery - Freddie DeBoer]</ref> While he has stated that he stopped using Twitter and other social media in 2017 for the sake of his health, he returned to Bluesky in 2025 in anticipation of his forthcoming novel, ''The Mind Reels'' (Coffee House Press).<ref>{{Cite web |last=deBoer |first=Freddie |date=2025-08-07 |title=Why I Need Your Help with My Novel |url=https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/why-i-need-your-help-with-my-novel |access-date=2025-08-08 |website=Freddie deBoer}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=deBoer |first=Freddie |date=2023-07-11 |title=No, I'm Not "Alice From Queens" |url=https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/no-im-not-alice-in-queens |access-date=2025-08-08 |website=Freddie deBoer}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Mind Reels |url=https://coffeehousepress.org/products/the-mind-reels |access-date=2025-08-08 |website=Coffee House Press}}</ref>
== Books == * {{cite book|author=Fredrik deBoer|author-mask=0|year=2020|title=The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice|publisher=All Points Books, an imprint of St. Martin's Publishing Group|isbn=9781250200372|ref=none}}<ref name="macmillan" /> * {{cite book|author=Fredrik deBoer|author-mask=0|year=2023|title=How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=9781668016015|ref=none}}<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/09/01/how-elites-ate-social-justice-movement-fredrik-deboer-review/|last=Rothfeld|first=Becca|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=2023-09-01|access-date=2023-09-05|title=Should progressives want the support of the ruling classes?}}</ref> * {{cite book|author=Fredrik deBoer|author-mask=0|year=2025|title=The Mind Reels|publisher=Coffee House Press|isbn=9781566897372|ref=none}}
== References == {{reflist}}
== External links == * {{Official website}} * [https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/archive DeBoer's blog] on Substack
{{Authority control|state=collapsed}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:deBoer, Fredrik}} Category:1981 births Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers Category:American educators Category:American bloggers Category:American male bloggers Category:American male non-fiction writers Category:American Marxist writers Category:American socialists Category:Central Connecticut State University alumni Category:Living people Category:People from Middletown, Connecticut Category:Purdue University alumni Category:University of Rhode Island alumni Category:Writers from Connecticut Category:People with bipolar disorder Category:21st-century American male writers