How much money went into Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research, anyway? According to the Boston Globe, Kendi raised “tens of millions of dollars” for his Boston University-hosted center in just the three years since it launched in the wake of the George Floyd homicide in Minneapolis. How much research has all that money produced?

Not much, according to the Free Beacon:

The Boston University-based center has produced just two original research papers since its founding in June 2020, according to a Washington Free Beacon review. Output from the center’s scholars largely consists of op-eds or commentary posted on the center’s website. The group’s plans to “maintain the nation’s largest online database of racial inequity data in the United States” quickly fizzled out, and the database has been dormant since 2021. …

It is unclear how much money remains in the Center for Antiracist Research’s coffers. Boston University did not respond to a request for comment.

Boston U didn’t stay quiet for long, however. Late yesterday, they announced a broader “inquiry” into Kendi’s on-campus center, apparently including an accounting of the money. The university seems to have been taken by surprise by Kendi’s layoffs, and the complaints “about the center’s culture and grant management practices” have reached a pitch that they can no longer ignore:

The organization “was just being mismanaged on a really fundamental level,” said Phillipe Copeland, a professor in BU’s School of Social Work who also worked for the center as assistant director of narrative.

Although most decision-making authority rested with Kendi, Copeland said he found it difficult to schedule meetings with him. Other staffers described paralysis in the organization because Kendi declined to delegate authority and was not often available.

Where was Kendi? Pretty much everywhere else except the center, as the Globe points out:

Kendi has completed a number of personal projects since 2020, including a graphic novel focused on the history of racist ideas, a podcast called “Be Antiracist,” and a five-episode TV show scheduled to debut Wednesday on ESPN+.

In recent months, Kendi had been on leave from the center, according to BU.

And … no one at Boston U took notice of this? If Kendi made all of the decisions and Kendi was nowhere to be found, shouldn’t the university have taken some action? After all, the fundraising took place under their aegis and imprimatur.

Kendi returned last week, however, but that didn’t help matters. Rather than take the helm and get the center back on its declared mission objectives, Kendi started laying off the staff. He claimed to be conducting a “strategic pivot” away from research and into a “fellowship model,” which stunned the staffers at the Center for Antiracist Research.

It sounds as though the money ran out, although the center’s spokesperson denies it. However, former center staffers not only raise that issue, they claim to have been warning Boston U about it for almost two years:

“I don’t know where the money is,” said Saida Grundy, a BU professor who worked at the center from fall 2020 to spring 2021.

In December 2021, Grundy sent an email to BU provost Jean Morrison alleging dysfunction in the organization and a “pattern of amassing grants without any commitment to producing the research obligated” by them.

Let’s recap. Boston University began receiving warnings about potential financial mismanagement at the center it hosted and accommodated less than 18 months after it launched. The complaints included a strong suggestion of potential fraud, while its founder and only leader spent his time on personal projects and then stopped showing up at all for months. And only now has Boston U decided to conduct an “inquiry” to find out what happened to the money — and only because the Free Beacon and Boston Globe started embarrassing them with these reports.

Perhaps this inquiry should get conducted by an outside party — say, a US Attorney. And perhaps that inquiry should encompass Boston U’s administration as well.