‘Inquiry’ launched into Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research at BU

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Boston University confirmed it received complaints about the Center for Antiracist Research’s culture and financial management after a round of recent layoffs.

Boston University said it is conducting an “inquiry” into celebrity author Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research after receiving complaints about the center’s culture and grant management.

The announcement trails news of recent layoffs at the center, which launched in June 2020 amid the racial justice protests that followed the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery.

The center’s stated mission is to “convene varied researchers and practitioners to foster exhaustive racial data collection, research-based policy innovation, solutions-focused narrative change initiatives, and practical advocacy campaigns.” 

The author of 2019’s “How to Be an Antiracist,” Kendi joined Boston University to much fanfare, with the Center for Antiracist Research soon pulling in millions of dollars from big-name donors.

Then came the complaints.

Saida Grundy, a BU professor who worked at the center from fall 2020 to spring 2021, sent an email to then-provost Jean Morrison in December 2021 alleging dysfunction and a “pattern of amassing grants without any commitment to producing the research obligated” by them, according to The Boston Globe.

Similarly, BU Professor Phillipe Copeland, who resigned from the center in June, told the Globe the organization “was just being mismanaged on a really fundamental level.”

Other staffers who spoke with the Globe described a sense of paralysis, asserting that Kendi declined to delegate authority and was often unavailable, the newspaper reported.

“There are a number of ways it got to this point, it started very early on when the university decided to create a center that rested in the hands of one human being, an individual given millions of dollars and so much authority,” Spencer Piston, a BU professor and faculty lead in the center’s policy office, told the Globe.

Speaking to the student newspaper The Daily Free Press, Piston didn’t mince words: “The Center has very, very much failed to deliver on its promise. It’s been a colossal waste of millions of dollars.” 

In a statement, Boston University said Kendi “takes strong exception to the allegations made in recent complaints and media reports.” Boston.com has reached out to Kendi and the Center for Antiracist Research for comment. 

BU did, however, confirm that it received complaints about the center after the recent layoffs, when “a number of employees” lost their jobs.

“Those complaints focused on the center’s culture and its grant management practices,” according to the university’s statement. “We previously initiated an examination of those grant management practices and that will continue. Based on additional information provided to us, we are expanding our inquiry to include the Center’s management culture and the faculty and staff’s experience with it.”

BU said it recognizes “the importance of Dr. Kendi’s work and the significant impact it has had on antiracist thinking and policy,” adding that “Boston University and Dr. Kendi believe strongly in the Center’s mission.”

Boston University’s full statement on the Center for Antiracist Research:

“We received complaints after the Center for Antiracist Research recently laid off a number of employees. Those complaints focused on the center’s culture and its grant management practices. We previously initiated an examination of those grant management practices and that will continue. Based on additional information provided to us, we are expanding our inquiry to include the Center’s management culture and the faculty and staff’s experience with it. We recognize the importance of Dr. Kendi’s work and the significant impact it has had on antiracist thinking and policy. Boston University and Dr. Kendi believe strongly in the Center’s mission, and while he takes strong exception to the allegations made in recent complaints and media reports, we look forward to working with him as we conduct our assessment.”