Opinion | Ibram X. Kendi and the Problem of Celebrity Fund-Raising

“It was a frustration of mine, at the Democracy Alliance, that I couldn’t get people to invest as heavily in these civic engagement institutions on the Black and Latino side as they were used to doing in some of these historically white-led think tanks,” the former Democracy Alliance president Gara LaMarche told me. Often, he said, those groups lacked a “single charismatic leader” who could excite donors.

Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that in 2020, when there was a sudden rush to fund racial justice work, so much money — some but not all from corporations seeking good P.R. — flowed to the charismatic Kendi, who had little evident management experience, to build something from scratch.

“Once the center was established under the near-total control of a single individual, there were many conscientious, talented, dedicated people who came there because they recognized it as a site of power,” Spencer Piston, a Boston University professor who until recently served as faculty lead in the Center for Antiracist Research’s policy office, told me. (He says he hasn’t been able to get a straight answer about whether he’s been fired.) “Tens of millions of dollars were flowing in, and there was lots of prestige, and they thought this would be a chance to do some good.”

Piston remains proud of some of the center’s work, particularly research projects done in concert with local organizations like Family Matters First, which helps families caught up in the child welfare system. “It’s absolutely true that many of the center’s most high-profile projects have been failures,” he said. But there were also successes, despite what he called “the many pathologies at the center.”

Last week, however, Family Matters First found out that its contract with the center had been terminated ahead of schedule, meaning the group won’t receive $10,000 it was counting on. Tatiana Rodriguez, the founder, told me that the association with the center had meant a great deal to her tiny organization: “This was something that we were excited about as a community,” she said. Now she feels betrayed by Kendi.