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When Howard University students and scholars head back to campus in just a few weeks, they might be interested in getting involved with Professor Ibram Kendi’s latest endeavor.
In January, Howard University announced Kendi would be starting a new Institute for Advanced Study this year. The news release hailed Kendi for his “groundbreaking body of accessible scholarship.”
In a statement provided to The College Fix on Tuesday, Kendi said he is getting the project off the ground this month.
“I started at Howard University a few days ago,” Kendi said in a statement. “Standing up a brand new institute usually takes six months to a year.”
“I am looking forward to working with colleagues over the next year to strategically plan, acquire resources, hire staff, and unveil programs, including The Emancipator and our fellowship program,” he added.
Kendi is well-known as a proponent of “antiracist” ideology. He left Boston University in June after raising at least $50 million dollars but often failing to deliver on his promises. The university conducted an internal audit and found the Center for Antiracist Research “appropriately charged” “expenditures” “to their respective grant and gift accounts.”
Starting fresh at Howard, the institute promises to “engage thinkers and scholars at Howard University, in the country, and around the world in addressing deep and persisting inequities in areas including, but not limited to, technology, the environment, healthcare, the economy, governance, education, and the criminal legal system,” according to the news release.
It is also expected to include a “competitive residential fellowship program where an annual international class of fellows pursues impactful projects across disciplines and fields,” the release stated. “Each fellow will be paired with a Howard student to foster research and mentorship. The fellowship program will also be open to Howard’s faculty.”
Howard University media relations officials did not provide further details to The College Fix.
Currently the university has one link up about the think tank. It is a fundraising page, and the institute has yet to be listed under a “research centers & institutes” page for graduate students. A separate “centers & institutes” page also does not include any information.
“In the summer of 2025, he will join Howard University as Professor of History and Director of its newly established Howard Institute for Advanced Study,” Kendi’s personal website stated. A tab titled “antiracism center” on his website goes to the Boston University website.
MORE: Kendi’s ‘Antiracist’ center is racist by his own standards
He is not currently listed on Howard’s history department website. Kendi’s Facebook page has also not posted about the center.
In a July 23 interview with Mother Jones, Kendi again blamed racism for accusations of mismanagement against him (though many of his critics were black). He also gave few direct answers when asked what he planned to do with his new institute.
Here is the full answer he gave:
Well, just first and foremost, I feel like this is a full circle moment for me personally, because I really started my journey to be an intellectual at Florida A&M University, at an historically Black university. And I don’t know if I would have embarked on that journey if I had not been in that space. And so to be able to return to Howard University, to be able to work very closely with Howard faculty and students and alumni, to be able to be in a space where there’s a long history of nurturing scholars like me who study racism, is something I’m incredibly excited about. And to be there with other, again, scholars whose work I’ve studied and admired for a long time, I’m just really excited about the prospects.
During the interview he said allegations against him were driven by racism.
“And frankly, if you’re a Black leader, chances are somebody [has] claimed that you mismanaged something, because apparently Black leaders, we can’t manage anything,” Kendi said. “And so it wasn’t surprising for me or anyone who sort of studies racism that those allegations surfaced.”
His comments echo those he made in Oct. 2023, when accusations he severely mismanaged the center and failed as a leader came to light.
“I have been disappointed in journalists who report criticisms of a Black leader without asking for evidence to substantiate those allegations,” he told The Daily Free Press, the student newspaper at BU. “Racist ideas about a corrupt Black leader running a dysfunctional or toxic organization are so ingrained that reporters don’t feel the need for evidence.”
MORE: Ibram Kendi hasn’t published an academic paper in 4 years
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect comments provided Tuesday to The College Fix by Kendi.
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Professor Ibram Kendi during a webinar; American Federation of Teachers/YouTube
