BOSTON — School officials from Boston University announced they will soon be launching a center for anti-racist research. Plans for the program have been more than a year in the making, WFXT reported.
The announcement comes at a time when race and discrimination issues are at the forefront. School officials hope this will transform how racial research is done.
Author and professor Ibram X. Kendi will be leading the center. Jean Morrison is provost and chief academic officer at the university, and she was instrumental in recruiting Kendi.
“He has the capacity to identify and develop the rigorous framework for understanding these deeply rooted problems,” Morrison told WFXT.
Morrison said the academic center will study social and racial justice, and Kendi will collaborate with faculty and students to gather data on racial inequality.
After dozens of protests have taken place across the country, Morrison said there is now a need for immediate action to gather data and information necessary to understand how racism plays a role in history and right now in the United States.
“There are issues that he’s interested in that are policy issues. There are historical issues. There are archival issues. He has an expansive and aggressive view of the work that needs to be done,” Morrison said.
Morrison said this work will be an effort that’s unique to Kendi. She said he also has a goal of establishing a master’s degree in anti-racism studies or an undergraduate major or minor. She also said Boston University will strongly consider the challenge made today by Scott Hagan, the president of North Central University in Minneapolis. The leader of the a small Christian university is urging university leaders to offer a scholarship in George Floyd’s name.
Cox Media Group
