Ibram Kendi ‘anti-racist’ center at Boston University in freefall

The Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, established by Ibram X. Kendi, a scholar recognized for his leftist perspectives on race, has reportedly been facing ongoing financial and administrative turmoil.

This September, the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, which Kendi founded and now leads, laid off more than 50% of its workers despite having raised almost $55 million, according to a June 4 article in The New York Times. 

“At our current rate, we were going to run out in two years,” Kendi told The New York Times. “That was what ultimately led us to feel like we needed to make a major change.” 

Kendi alleged that the center’s financial woes came in part because donations to the institution plummeted following the surge during and after the 2020 summer riots. 

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One anonymous worker at Kendi’s center told The New York Times that Kendi “doesn’t trust anybody” and “doesn’t let anyone in.” Kendi also allegedly said it was “racist” for employees to open up about their concerns. 

Yanique Redwood, a researcher whom Kendi hired as an administrator at the center, told The New York Times that the institution seemed to be in dire financial straits at the time she joined in 2021. “Nothing was in place. It was unbelievable that an institution like that, with so much spotlight on it, just did not have systems. I understood why I was being brought in.”

“Everyone was overwhelmed. There were too many promises being made to funders. Products were being promised that could never be delivered,” she continued. 

Redwood, who resigned from the center in the fall of 2022, told The New York Times that Kendi ruled in a heavy-handed manner: “Only he had the ideas. We were there to execute on his ideas.” 

Describing its mission, the center writes on its website: “The Boston University Center for Antiracist Research represents a collaborative research and education effort across multiple disciplines to build a world where racial equity and social justice prevail.”

“We are choosing to be antiracist,” Kendi writes in his “founder’s statement” for the center. “My colleagues and I are choosing to use the blocks of thoughtful and exhaustive public scholarship to build an antiracist future for America, for humanity.”

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This October, Kendi claimed that criticism of the dysfunction of his center is racist, saying: “Not everyone wants to build an antiracist society; that is clear. I have been disappointed in journalists who report criticisms of a Black leader without asking for evidence to substantiate those allegations. Racist ideas about a corrupt Black leader running a dysfunctional or toxic organization are so ingrained that reporters don’t feel the need for evidence.”

“When explaining turnover rates of white-led organizations, people inside and outside the organization usually point to larger structural factors. When explaining turnover rates of Black-led organizations, people inside and outside the organization usually point to bad leadership,” he said. 

Kendi’s apparent mismanagement prompted Boston University to start an inquiry into the workings of the organization. Though the school found no evidence of financial fraud or mismanagement, but it announced in November that it will continue investigating the organization’s “operating climate and culture.”

Campus Reform has contacted Boston University and Ibram X. Kendi for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.