Audit finds ‘no problem’ with ‘anti-racist’ research center that produced little original work

Boston University’s (BU) audit of its Center for Anti-Racism Research (CAR) found “no problems” or “concerns” with its finances, even though the center took in tens of millions of dollars and produced little original research, according to a BU press release. .

The CAR, founded by anti-racist scholar Ibram X. Kendi, let go nearly 20 staff members in September and, in its three years of operation, produced two academic papers after receiving more than $43 million in external funding. BU opened an investigation into the center after allegations of financial mismanagement and a “dysfunctional” work culture, which found “no problems with how CAR’s finances were managed” and said “expenses were properly debited to their respective grant and gift accounts.” seconds in a Tuesday press release.

“Our auditors concluded that CAR’s financial management of its grants and gifts was adequate,” Gary Nicksa, BU’s chief financial officer and treasurer, said in a news release.

CAR’s mission is to “understand, explain, and solve seemingly intractable problems of racial inequality and injustice.” seconds on your website. It also promotes “racial research”, education and advocacy policies and campaigns.

The center “will move away from staff and faculty running CAR projects and programs and become a structure in which fellows will be in residence at BU for nine months conducting their own individual projects,” according to the press release. It will now be at half capacity following changes to the structure.

Kendi’s CAR received millions in funding from liberal groups and individuals. The center received $1.5 million from the Rockefeller Foundation, $10 million from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, and nearly $138,000 from the George Soros Foundation to promote the open society.

Phillipe Copeland, a former employee at the centre, said it was “being mismanaged at a really fundamental level”. seconds in the Boston Globe.

Another former employee, Saida Grundy, said she did not “know where the money is.”

Grundy alleged in a December 2021 email to BU Chancellor Jean Morrison that the center had a “pattern of accumulating grants without any commitment to produce the required research,” according to the Globe.

One of the investigations papers produced by the center theorized that combining “merit with idealized images of white masculinity causes an unconscious anxiety in white men who aspire to fulfill these ideals.”

Another paper compared differences in the structures of white and minority neighborhoods. It found that minority neighborhoods had less green space and less well-maintained structures and that studying the neighborhoods further could “enhance understanding of how structural racism manifested through the built environment is associated with poor health outcomes.”

BU and the CAR did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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