During the height of the debate on critical race theory, Ibram X. Kendi, the Boston University professor of “antiracism,” attacked my work on MSNBC and other outlets. In response, I penned an op-ed for the New York Post warning that Kendi was the “false prophet of a dangerous and lucrative faith.”
Now, a prediction I made—that Kendi’s unpopular ideology and bogus research would fail—has proven true. According to news reports, Kendi accumulated more than $40 million for his Center for Antiracist Research at BU, produced virtually no research, and then laid off nearly half of his employees, who accordingly accused him of mismanaging funds, failing to deliver key projects, and mistreating his team. In the wake of these allegations, Boston University announced an official investigation.
As I explained to John Roberts on Fox News:
This is part of a pattern that we saw in 2020. We saw record donations to groups like Black Lives Matter, to groups like Ibram Kendi’s so-called Anti-Racism Center, and now fast-forward three years and what we have seen is the BLM organization, the leaders looted it and headed to the hills. They decamped to their mansions and left the organization in shambles. And now we have Ibram Kendi’s Antiracism Center, which is the most spectacular academic failure in many years. They hoovered up $40 million and produced almost no research.
This really is at the heart of this movement. It’s empty. It’s nihilistic. It has nothing of substance—it’s all about taking in cash, producing nothing, cashing personal paychecks, and then running when everything falls apart. To me, this is a symbol of where we have come since 2020 and why that movement is really floundering today.
Many of us saw this from the beginning. It was very clear that Ibram Kendi was a fraud in 2020. His signature idea was to use the government to discriminate against people of one racial group to benefit people of another racial group, which he called “anti-racist discrimination.” But for any neutral or dispassionate observer, it was simply racism in a new direction.
He has nothing to offer to the debate, and I’m glad to see his research center implode. It’s the ultimate vindication for those of us who said that critical race theory was not a solution to America’s problems and that Ibram Kendi was a false prophet of a dangerous philosophy. This is really poetic justice and I think marks the end of this chapter in the left-wing racialist saga.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
The Downfall of Ibram Kendi