In September, Boston University announced layoffs at its Center for Antiracist Research, along with a change to its operating model. 

The news prompted former colleagues and current collaborators to publicly question the BU Center for Antiracist Research’s ability to deliver on the promises it had made to funders. 

Acknowledging the layoffs, the university and the center's director, Ibrahim X. Kendi, said it was not financially sustainable to conduct research and develop programs with its own employees, despite having raised more than $50 million for the center since its founding in 2020.

Observers, like Jenn M. Jackson, assistant professor of political science, say that this episode reveals a mismatch between what funders in 2020 said they wanted to do, which was to end racist policies in the U.S., and the way they went about it, which was to give millions to a new research center at a university.