Professor Ibram X. Kendi has run into a spot of trouble. His fantastically funded Center for Antiracist Research – more than $43 million (£35 million) in the first two years alone – at Boston University is in financial meltdown. What happen to the $10 million (£8 million) from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey? Where are the donations from discount retailer TJ Maxx, food emporium Stop & Shop, and exercise empire Peleton? Why did the centre lay off almost all its staff last week?
No one at Boston University can give a straight answer. The story has made it into the national press, but the most illuminating details come from the student newspaper, the Daily Free Press. Its headline reads: ‘Amid mass layoffs, BU Center for Antiracist Research accused of mismanagement of funds, disorganisation.’ I take a keen interest because I spent 24 years as a faculty member and administrator at the university, and have harboured misgivings about the Kendian enterprise from the outset.
Not the faintest whisper of Western civilisation could escape Kendi’s accusatory finger
To see why the centre has not held, it is useful to go back to the beginning. That
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