Following a series of failures and setbacks for Ibram X. Kendi’s far-left “antiracist” research center, Boston University has launched an investigation into allegations of “fundamental” mismanagement and an overall “dysfunctional” culture.
As the Daily Caller reports, the university will investigate whether the Center for Antiracist Research followed basic funding guidelines, as well as whether or not it mistreated its staff. The probe comes after several other pitfalls for the controversial center, including the firing of a significant portion of its staff, and the fact that the center has produced just two research papers in three years, despite receiving over $10 million in donations since its foundation.
One former employee of the center, Phillipe Copeland, said that the center “was just being mismanaged on a really fundamental level.” Another former employee, Saida Gundy, simply said that she doesn’t “know where the money is.” In December of 2021, an email was sent to Boston University, the host of the center, accusing the center of a “pattern of amassing grants without any commitment to producing the research obligated.”
Since its founding in June of 2020, the center has received roughly $43 million in donations from the likes of George Soros, the Rockefeller Foundation, former Twitter owner Jack Dorsey, and the Ford Foundation. Last week, during a Zoom meeting, about 20 of the center’s 45 employees were suddenly laid off all at once.
Kendi himself allegedly told staffers that the center was not sustainable, with others claiming that he was never capable of leading the project. Many have since expressed concerns that potential future donors will back out due to its failure to deliver results.
Boston University said in a statement that the bulk of the complaints “focused on the center’s culture and its grant management practices,” adding that the university had “previously initiated an examination of those grant management practices.” However, the inquiry has since been expanded “to include the Center’s management culture” due to new information from insiders.
Kendi had risen to prominence for his 2019 book “How to be an Antiracist,” alleging that everyone is secretly racist unless they are actively campaigning against racism. Although he has been heavily promoted by the mainstream media as an academic genius, his credentials are roughly on par with the average across the country, with a 3.0 GPA in high school, an SAT score of 1000, and his PhD being in African-American studies from Temple University in 2010.