The research home that Ibram X. Kendi has overseen since 2020, Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, produced just two new scholarly contributions since its founding in June 2020.
Today, the Washington Free Beacon published its review of the publications produced under Kendi’s tenure; it found that most scholars associated with the research center produced “op-eds or commentary posted on the center’s website.” Accordingly, the center failed in its core mission to “maintain the nation’s largest online database of racial inequity data in the United States.”
The revelation comes after the center announced last week that nearly half of the staff affiliated with the Kendi-led group had been laid off. While university spokespeople did not officially confirm how many employees it let go, Fox News noted that it was probably between 15 and 20 workers. By comparison, the Boston Globe, which first reported on the center’s troubles last week, previously estimated that 20 to 30 employees had been fired.
Saida Grundy, a sociology professor who worked for Kendi’s antiracism center until 2021, before she quit, noted that the center lacked structure and she was forced to work long hours. “It became very clear after I started that this was exploitative, and other faculty experienced the same and worse,” she noted.
Another academic affiliated with the school, social-work professor Phillipe Copeland, shared on social media: “I decided I could no longer work at the Center due to the mismanagement I witnessed.” As a result of Copeland’s concerns, he said, “I was subsequently told I could no longer be part of the leadership of the Fellowship I created.”
“Antiracism is not a branding exercise, PR campaign or path to self-promotion. It is a life and death matter. Too much of higher education responded to the so-called ‘racial reckoning’ with theatre, therapy, and marketing masquerading as institutional commitment,” Copeland added in a note that was shared by Christopher Rufo, a vocal critic of Kendi.
A former faculty member at Ibram Kendi's "antiracism" center blasts Kendi for unleashing "employment violence" on his fired employees and suggests that Kendi's "commitment to antiracism is cosmetic and hypocritical."
Woke-on-woke recriminations rising. Kendi the new oppressor. pic.twitter.com/7Fstik0U4X
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) September 19, 2023
Kendi gained international acclaim as a leading scholar of anti-racism following his 2019 book, How to Be an Antiracist. In it, Kendi controversially argued: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”