BOSTON, MA - When you are born with the name Henry Rogers, probably one of the most white-sounding names out there, it is challenging to come across as some racial justice warrior. Change your name to Ibram X.
Kendi, however, and it is easy to pull the wool over the eyes of anyone, in particular virtue-signaling corporations and universities. Kendi took that to an absurd level and enrichened himself in doing so.
In 2020, amid the George Floyd riots, Kendi, whose claim to fame was a racist book called “How To Be An Antiracist,” was able to dupe Boston University into hiring him to lead its newly-minted “Center for Antiracist Research.”
After three years and $43 million in grants and gifts, the Center for Antiracist Research has jettisoned half its staff as of last week, BU’s student newspaper, The Daily Free Press, reports.
What did Boston University gain from Kendi’s grift? Not much, with the “research” center producing little in the way of actual research for the tidy sum of $43 million. Despite most of that money remaining unaccounted for, Kendi will continue to oversee the center as it transitions to so-called “fellowship model.”
Fox News Digital said the university confirmed the center laid off at least 15 staff members in what was referred to as an “evolving” process.
“The Center is evolving to a fellowship model. Dr. Kendi remains the Director. We can confirm that there were layoffs at the Center. The University and Center are committed to working with and supporting affected employees as they look for their next opportunities,” BU University PR Associate Vice President Rachel Lapal Cavallario said in a statement.
The center's demise did not set well with Professor Phillipe Copeland, who accused the university of “employment violence and trauma” for allowing the layoffs.
“Boston University needs to explain how one of its premier Centers ended up in this situation and how mass layoffs are ‘antiracist.’ This act of employment violence and trauma is not just about individual leaders. It’s about the cultures and systems that allow it to occur. And too often rewards it. Antiracism is not a branding exercise, PR campaign, or path to self-promotion. It is a life and death matter,” Copeland wrote.
Copeland pulled no punches, accusing not only Boston University but other universities by responding to “so-called ‘racial reckoning’ with theatre, therapy, and marketing masquerading as institutional commitment. Where ever [sic] this has occurred, it needs to be exposed for the obscenity that it is.”
He further admonished colleges and universities “preaching ‘antiracism’ need to actually practice it.”
Copeland further accused the Center of “mismanagement.” Copeland, one of those laid off, further said, “Taking a program from the black faculty member that created it is apparently what BU considers ‘antiracism’ and ‘diversity and inclusion.’ I’m sharing my story in the hopes this does not happen to someone else.”
The tens of millions in gifts and grants to the Center included $10 million from former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, according to 2021 budget records obtained by The Daily Free Press. The list, which was not all-inclusive, listed TJ Maxx’s foundation, Stop & Shop, and Peloton as donating over one million dollars to Kendi’s grift.
Complaints against the Center began in 2021, slowly building a reputation for having a toxic work environment. In a stark example of irony, one of the complaints surfaced was allegations of discrimination in the supposed “antiracist” organization.
However, one of the tenets actively advocated for by Kendi himself was discrimination as a solution to discrimination. Yes, Rogers (Kendi) is a confused individual. Nonetheless, Kendi has become a wealthy individual by pushing his antiracist claptrap.
What happened to all that money? Nobody knows, but in 2021, Saida Grundy, an associate professor of sociology who worked at the Center, filed an anonymous complaint alleging the center was loading up its bank accounts with grant money but had no intention of actually carrying out the research projects the money was intended to fund. After notifying BU of her concerns, she claims she was retaliated against by BU, alleging the university cut off communications with her and let her contract end.
Grundy’s complaints centered around several high-level employees who suddenly left the center and allegations of a culture that included fear of retaliation and discrimination, The Daily Free Press reported.
Grundy took her complaints to then-Provost Jean Morrison to discuss her concerns. After meeting with Morrison, Grundy sent a follow-up email to Morrison, which went unanswered. Morrison was instrumental in Kendi’s hiring, hence her apparent lack of concern over Grundy’s allegations.
In her initial complaint to Morrison, Grundy wrote, "The pattern of amassing grants without any commitment to producing the research obligated to them continues to be standard operating procedure at CAR [Center for Antiracist Research],” she wrote. “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 accused the university of bringing in Kendi to address its “race problem.”
“They don’t want to address black enrollment because they don’t want to be seen as a school that’s getting blacker because they want to raise their prestige,” Grundy said. “That’s the real racism.”
Phillipe Copeland, a clinical associate professor in the School of Social Work and former assistant director of the narrative office at CAR, left his role in June. He noted that massive layoffs, such as at CAR, are highly unusual for Boston University.
“It does damage to this area of work because there are already people out there that are trying to discredit antiracism,” Copeland said. “TO have such a high-profile person to be associated with leading an organization that fails so spectacularly, that has a ripple effect.”
One of those laid off, a CAR manager who asked to remain anonymous, said the layoffs, announced during Zoom meetings, felt “rehearsed.”
“We felt disposable. I’m surprised that there’s still no official statement. Actually, it adds to the disrespect, in my opinion, almost as if it can be kept under wraps.”
This does not matter to Kendi, who has enrichened himself by pushing his racist tropes. Kendi has used liberal white guilt and that of major corporations who virtue signal to show how tolerant they are to line his pockets.
He was able to shake down Netflix for a lucrative deal and was paid $20,000 by the Fairfax County (VA) Public Schools for a one-hour virtual lecture on antiracism and was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2020.
Kendi’s grift follows that of Black Lives Matter, which has done little to enrich the lives of those whose name it misappropriates and instead lined the pockets and expanded the real estate portfolios of its founders. They, along with Kendi, laugh all the way to the bank.
Kendi, however, and it is easy to pull the wool over the eyes of anyone, in particular virtue-signaling corporations and universities. Kendi took that to an absurd level and enrichened himself in doing so.
In 2020, amid the George Floyd riots, Kendi, whose claim to fame was a racist book called “How To Be An Antiracist,” was able to dupe Boston University into hiring him to lead its newly-minted “Center for Antiracist Research.”
After three years and $43 million in grants and gifts, the Center for Antiracist Research has jettisoned half its staff as of last week, BU’s student newspaper, The Daily Free Press, reports.
What did Boston University gain from Kendi’s grift? Not much, with the “research” center producing little in the way of actual research for the tidy sum of $43 million. Despite most of that money remaining unaccounted for, Kendi will continue to oversee the center as it transitions to so-called “fellowship model.”
Fox News Digital said the university confirmed the center laid off at least 15 staff members in what was referred to as an “evolving” process.
“The Center is evolving to a fellowship model. Dr. Kendi remains the Director. We can confirm that there were layoffs at the Center. The University and Center are committed to working with and supporting affected employees as they look for their next opportunities,” BU University PR Associate Vice President Rachel Lapal Cavallario said in a statement.
The center's demise did not set well with Professor Phillipe Copeland, who accused the university of “employment violence and trauma” for allowing the layoffs.
“Boston University needs to explain how one of its premier Centers ended up in this situation and how mass layoffs are ‘antiracist.’ This act of employment violence and trauma is not just about individual leaders. It’s about the cultures and systems that allow it to occur. And too often rewards it. Antiracism is not a branding exercise, PR campaign, or path to self-promotion. It is a life and death matter,” Copeland wrote.
Copeland pulled no punches, accusing not only Boston University but other universities by responding to “so-called ‘racial reckoning’ with theatre, therapy, and marketing masquerading as institutional commitment. Where ever [sic] this has occurred, it needs to be exposed for the obscenity that it is.”
He further admonished colleges and universities “preaching ‘antiracism’ need to actually practice it.”
Copeland further accused the Center of “mismanagement.” Copeland, one of those laid off, further said, “Taking a program from the black faculty member that created it is apparently what BU considers ‘antiracism’ and ‘diversity and inclusion.’ I’m sharing my story in the hopes this does not happen to someone else.”
The tens of millions in gifts and grants to the Center included $10 million from former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, according to 2021 budget records obtained by The Daily Free Press. The list, which was not all-inclusive, listed TJ Maxx’s foundation, Stop & Shop, and Peloton as donating over one million dollars to Kendi’s grift.
Complaints against the Center began in 2021, slowly building a reputation for having a toxic work environment. In a stark example of irony, one of the complaints surfaced was allegations of discrimination in the supposed “antiracist” organization.
However, one of the tenets actively advocated for by Kendi himself was discrimination as a solution to discrimination. Yes, Rogers (Kendi) is a confused individual. Nonetheless, Kendi has become a wealthy individual by pushing his antiracist claptrap.
What happened to all that money? Nobody knows, but in 2021, Saida Grundy, an associate professor of sociology who worked at the Center, filed an anonymous complaint alleging the center was loading up its bank accounts with grant money but had no intention of actually carrying out the research projects the money was intended to fund. After notifying BU of her concerns, she claims she was retaliated against by BU, alleging the university cut off communications with her and let her contract end.
Grundy’s complaints centered around several high-level employees who suddenly left the center and allegations of a culture that included fear of retaliation and discrimination, The Daily Free Press reported.
Grundy took her complaints to then-Provost Jean Morrison to discuss her concerns. After meeting with Morrison, Grundy sent a follow-up email to Morrison, which went unanswered. Morrison was instrumental in Kendi’s hiring, hence her apparent lack of concern over Grundy’s allegations.
In her initial complaint to Morrison, Grundy wrote, "The pattern of amassing grants without any commitment to producing the research obligated to them continues to be standard operating procedure at CAR [Center for Antiracist Research],” she wrote. “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 accused the university of bringing in Kendi to address its “race problem.”
“They don’t want to address black enrollment because they don’t want to be seen as a school that’s getting blacker because they want to raise their prestige,” Grundy said. “That’s the real racism.”
Phillipe Copeland, a clinical associate professor in the School of Social Work and former assistant director of the narrative office at CAR, left his role in June. He noted that massive layoffs, such as at CAR, are highly unusual for Boston University.
“It does damage to this area of work because there are already people out there that are trying to discredit antiracism,” Copeland said. “TO have such a high-profile person to be associated with leading an organization that fails so spectacularly, that has a ripple effect.”
One of those laid off, a CAR manager who asked to remain anonymous, said the layoffs, announced during Zoom meetings, felt “rehearsed.”
“We felt disposable. I’m surprised that there’s still no official statement. Actually, it adds to the disrespect, in my opinion, almost as if it can be kept under wraps.”
This does not matter to Kendi, who has enrichened himself by pushing his racist tropes. Kendi has used liberal white guilt and that of major corporations who virtue signal to show how tolerant they are to line his pockets.
He was able to shake down Netflix for a lucrative deal and was paid $20,000 by the Fairfax County (VA) Public Schools for a one-hour virtual lecture on antiracism and was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2020.
Kendi’s grift follows that of Black Lives Matter, which has done little to enrich the lives of those whose name it misappropriates and instead lined the pockets and expanded the real estate portfolios of its founders. They, along with Kendi, laugh all the way to the bank.
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Comments
2023-09-27T16:30-0500 | Comment by: Andrea
How does most of the $43,000 remain unaccounted for. It went into a bank account somewhere and had to come out again. Follow the money. They need a good forensic accounting genius to get to the bottom of this. Plus why would Boston University not use common sense and set this up with safeguards. Spacing out the grants, etc based on results and reports from this organization. Heaven help us - how is a University supposed to put out educated students when it is making such juvenile decisions. UGH
2023-09-27T17:46-0500 | Comment by: Laurence
Just where are the bank statements? And the payroll sheets? Did they do all their business in cash? The University should demand an exact accounting of all the money wasted on this nonsense. Does Kendi have an offshore account? The University was incredibly careless and irresponsible not to set up an exact accounting system for this group. Don't they teach accounting and fiscal responsibility at this supposedly advanced school?