Boston University plans to shut down its Center for Antiracist Research and part ways with founder Ibram X. Kendi, ending the once-heralded program amid concerns over his leadership as the diversity guru takes up a new university post in the District.

Boston University announced that the center launched less than five years ago will close when its charter expires June 30, while Howard University announced separately that Mr. Kendi will head its newly established Institute for Advanced Study.

“I could not be prouder and more excited to join this illustrious and historic university,” Mr. Kendi said in a statement released last week by Howard. “I have had my eye on the Mecca my entire career, studying its history and witnessing what Howard means to the culture.”

Mr. Kendi, one of the biggest names in diversity, equity and inclusion, called the move “the most fulfilling choice” of his career, but his departure also comes after two years of well-publicized criticism over his leadership at the Boston center.

Founded in 2020 at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Center for Antiracist Research attracted $50 million in donations, but it was soon plagued by concerns about financial mismanagement. Nineteen of its 36 employees were laid off in 2023.

In a statement on Thursday, Boston University indicated that fundraising had dried up, saying that “with public support having shifted and contributions waning, the center pursued a new strategy under Kendi.”

The center trimmed its sails, opting to bring on visiting fellows instead of conducting in-house research. Plans to create a graduate program and undergraduate minor in antiracist studies were shelved, changes that Mr. Kendi attributed to growing pains associated with start-up organizations.

At least two academics who left the center accused Mr. Kendi of mismanagement, while he blamed racism in part for the negative press coverage.

“Unfortunately, one of the most widely held racist ideas is the idea that Black people can’t manage money or Black people take money,” Mr. Kendi, author of the 2019 bestseller “How to Be an Antiracist,” told The Associated Press in a November 2023 interview.

A Boston University audit found “no issues” with the center’s handling of its finances or grant-reporting. Still, there were signs that the relationship between Mr. Kendi and the university administration was fraying.

An anonymous university spokesperson told the New York Times last year that Mr. Kendi was offered financial and administrative support, but that “Dr. Kendi did not always accept the support” and that the university in hindsight “should have done more to insist on additional oversight.”

The center started a “Covid Racial Data Tracker” and an online publication, The Emancipator, but critics on the right accused the project of having little to show for its millions of dollars in cost.

Conservatives applauded the center’s closure. Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby declared on X that “Ibram Kendi’s Center for Peddling Lucrative Racial Snake Oil, or whatever it was called, is shutting down and he is leaving town. Boston won’t miss him.”

Christopher Rufo, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, posted on X that “Kendi’s center hoovered up tens of millions of dollars in grants, but produced virtually no work. Another BLM-era grift comes to a close.”

Howard University said its newly founded institute would host visiting residential fellows each year to pursue research focused on racial inequality in areas such as “technology, the environment, healthcare, the economy, governance, education, and the criminal legal system.”

“Each fellow will be paired with a Howard student to foster research and mentorship,” Howard said Thursday in a statement. “The fellowship program will also be open to Howard’s faculty.”

Mr. Kendi is known for coining the term “antiracist,” and both of the institutes he founded bore the name. Before arriving in Boston, Mr. Kendi founded in 2017 the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University in the District.

Unlike his previous two centers, however, the Howard institute will not use the name “antiracist” in its title.

The move from American to Boston University represented a step up for Mr. Kendi in terms of prestige, but the move from Boston to Howard, a historically Black university, isn’t exactly lateral.

Ranked #86 by U.S. News and World Report among national universities, Howard has a student population of 10,000 and endowment of nearly $900 million, while Boston is ranked #41 and enrolls more than 37,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Boston’s endowment is $3.5 billion.

Anthony Wutoh, Howard provost and chief academic officer, said that Mr. Kendi’s “exceptional scholarship and unwavering commitment to social justice align perfectly with Howard University’s mission and values.”

“We are confident that under his leadership, the new institute will become a beacon of excellence and a catalyst for transformative change,” he said in a statement.

• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.