Ibram Kendi's new antiracism center at Howard University is set to launch this fall, reports The College Fix.
As of May 18th, the Institute for Advanced Study was hiring for an administrative assistant, a breaking news reporter, an investigator reporter, and a video editor.
Howard hired Kendi in January 2025 to direct its Institute for Advanced Study, which is described as a think tank to address "deep and persisting inequities in areas including, but not limited to, technology, the environment, healthcare, the economy, governance, education, and the criminal legal system."
Kendi, whose real name is Henry Rogers, is the author of the book “How to be an Antiracist." That book is a best seller that helped launch the “anti-racism” movement on school campuses and corporate human resources offices.
Matt Lamb, associate editor of The College Fix, said this is a second chance of sorts for Kendi after his poor leadership and oversight at Boston University.
"There were serious concerns about his management of his most famous one at Boston University, which he started after he also had one at American University," Lamb tells AFN.
At Boston, Kendi was the director the Center of Antiracism Research, which laid off half its staff in 2023 and has remained mainly inactive since 2024. That center shuttered after launching with a $10 million start-up from Jack Dorsey, the former Twitter CEO.
It's unclear why the Howard center has yet to be launched. Lamb says Kendi’s team said in December 2025 that the center would be launching early into the new year.
"I think most people would assume means January, but now, we are wrapping up his first full school year, and the only visible proof the center exists is a fundraising page and a couple of Facebook posts by Kendi," says Lamb. "He has been busy these last couple of months promoting his latest book called ‘Chain of Ideas,’ but apparently now is only getting around to what is supposed to be his full time job."
The Institute will include an affiliated publication called The Emancipator. It’s supposed to pay homage to a former abolitionist newspaper. Assuming it will take the same format that it did at Boston University, Lamb expects it’ll include various essays on racial issues.
"There's nothing in itself wrong with that. He's certainly free to have people put out their views and their analysis of various situations, but what's most surprising is that that has yet to be launched because that should be the easiest thing to do," says Lamb. "Soliciting a few essays every month on various racial topics, especially since Ibram Kendi wants us to believe racism is everywhere — it's surprising."
