Things keep getting worse for Ibram Kendi. Just a matter of days ago, his ‘anti-racist’ think tank at Boston University laid off a third of its staff. Then employees started accusing him of exploiting them.
Now the university is taking a hard look at the organization’s funding. There were millions of dollars involved here, and people are wondering how things went haywire so quickly. Even the liberal media is taking notice of this.
This is from the Boston Globe:
Following layoffs, Boston University announces ‘inquiry’ into Ibram Kendi’s Antiracist CenterBoston University announced Wednesday it would conduct an “inquiry” into Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research after complaints emerged about the center’s culture and financial management.The assessment comes the week after Kendi, a celebrity author, scholar of race, and antiracism advocate laid off more than half the center’s staff.The complaints, a BU spokesperson said, “focused on the center’s culture and its grant management practices.” The inquiry announced Wednesday represents a broadening of a previous “examination” of the center’s grant management practices, according to the spokesperson, Rachel Lapal Cavallario.Kendi “takes strong exception to the allegations made in recent complaints and media reports,” she said.Since its announced launch in June 2020, just days after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the center has raised tens of millions of dollars from tech entrepreneurs, Boston-area corporations, and thousands of small donors.
Boston University’s student newspaper, the Daily Free Press, is also covering it:
Amid mass layoffs, BU Center for Antiracist Research accused of mismanagement of funds, disorganizationBoston University hired Ibram X. Kendi to lead its new Center for Antiracist Research in 2020, a year marked by a global pandemic and nationwide racial tension.Three years later, after at least $43 million in grants and gifts and what sources say has been an underwhelming output of research, the Center for Antiracist Research laid off almost all of its staff last week.Multiple former staff members allege that a mismanagement of funds, high turnover rate and general disorganization have plagued the Center since its inception.The $43 million, according to 2021 budget records obtained by The Daily Free Press, includes general support, such as the $10 million from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, as well as donations for specific projects.
One of the big problems here is that despite having mountains of cash in funding, the center hasn’t really produced very much.
The Washington Free Beacon reported:
Ibram Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research Hasn’t Produced Any ResearchIbram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research made headlines this month when it announced it would axe a third of its workforce. But those layoffs may not have much of an impact, considering the center has hardly produced any original research at all.The Boston University-based center has produced just two original research papers since its founding in June 2020, according to a Washington Free Beacon review. Output from the center’s scholars largely consists of op-eds or commentary posted on the center’s website. The group’s plans to “maintain the nation’s largest online database of racial inequity data in the United States” quickly fizzled out, and the database has been dormant since 2021.
Chris Rufo makes a great point about all of this.
It really does look like a massive grift.
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