The Graves of Academe (#714): The ‘Center For Antiracist Research’ at Boston University

Two journalists at BU, Molly Farrar and Lydia Evans, have performed a great service in reporting on the multifarious failures of at BU’s Center for Antiracist Research, the brainchild and fiefdom of one Ibram X. Kendi, author of How To Be An Antiracist, who has proceeded to lead the center to rack and ruin. The Center for Antiracist Research has spawned, among other groups, the Racial Data Lab and the Antiracist Tech Initiative, as well as the COVID Racial Data Tracker. It has also held, virtually, the National Antiracist Book Festival, which was devoted to the antiracist work of….Ibram X. Kendi. “Amid mass layoffs, BU Center for Antiracist Research accused of mismanagement of funds, disorganization,” by Molly Farrar and Lydia Evans, Daily Free Press, September 21, 2023:

Boston 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.

The document, which is not an all-inclusive list of donors, also lists TJ Maxx’s foundation, Stop & Shop and Peloton as donating over a million dollars.

Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of “How to Be an Antiracist,” Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and a history professor at BU, founded the Center three years after he founded the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University.

Kendi talked to BU Today when BU’s Center first launched in 2020.

“My hope is that it becomes a premier research center for researchers and for practitioners to really solve these intractable racial problems of our time,” Kendi said to BU Today. “Not only will the center seek to make that level of impact, but also work to transform how racial research is done.”

A week after the layoffs, BU announced Wednesday that they received complaints “focused on the center’s culture and its grant management practices.”

“We are expanding our inquiry to include the Center’s management culture and the faculty and staff’s experience with it,” BU spokesperson Colin Riley said. “Boston University and Dr. Kendi believe strongly in the Center’s mission, and … he takes strong exception to the allegations made in recent complaints and media reports.”

The Compliance Services Office received an anonymous complaint in 2021 about the Center from Saida Grundy, an associate professor of sociology at BU and former CAR employee.

The complaint detailed multiple high-level employees leaving suddenly and allegations of a workplace culture that included fear of retaliation and discrimination.

After submitting the complaint, Grundy then personally went to then-Provost Jean Morrison in 2021 to discuss the alleged toxic work culture and grant mismanagement, among other significant concerns. Grundy said she sent a follow-up email after the meeting, and Morrison did not reply.

As Provost, Morrison was instrumental in Kendi’s hiring, according to Grundy and BU Today.

“The pattern of amassing grants without any commitment to producing the research obligated to them continues to be standard operating procedure at CAR,” Grundy wrote to Morrison. “This is not a matter of slow launch. To the best of my knowledge, there is no good faith commitment to fulfilling funded research projects at CAR.”

Grundy said the Center ceased communication when her year-long contract came to an end in June 2021, which she said was retaliation for speaking up about it.

Phillipe Copeland, a clinical associate professor in the School of Social Work and former assistant director of the Narrative office at CAR, spent two years developing educational programming for the Center. He left his role in June.

“The narrative that seems to be coming from CAR and from BU is that this is some innovative, organizational pivot or redesign rather than an institutional failure, for which people need to be accountable,” he said before the inquiry was launched. “There needs to actually be an explanation to people who invested time and energy in the Center.”

Two emails sent to Kendi’s chief of staff requesting comment from CAR and Kendi were not answered.

“It’s a real mess,” Copeland said. “There’s just no winners here.”…

Spencer Piston, an associate professor of political science, who works as the faculty lead in the Policy office at the Center, said the layoffs are surprising given that the new fellowship model “will involve hiring new people.” He said he is unsure if his job is secure at the Center.

“The Center has very, very much failed to deliver on its promise. It’s been a colossal waste of millions of dollars,” said Piston, noting that individual staff members did make progress on specific projects while facing high turnover and lack of support from management….

Grundy said several faculty affiliates who participated in the Convening “walked away from the project soured by what they feel was not only an exploitative ask, but also a deeply anti-intellectual endeavor,” anti-intellectual because the project solely promoted Kendi’s work, “not a scholarly dialogue.”…

After three years and $43 million since its founding, this Center for Antiracist Research has apparently produced nothing of value. With so many complaints about a “grifter” at the top, one hopes that investigators and prosecutors will be looking into where all those antiracist millions went.