Ibram X. Kendi pulled in $32,500, or about $541 per minute, for an April 2021 speech at the University of Virginia (UVA), according to an agreement obtained by the Daily Wire’s Gabe Kaminsky via a Freedom of Information Act request. Ironically, the virtual talk, which was attended by 876 people, was on “racial equity.” And that’s not all. Kaminsky writes:
Other 2020-2021 series speakers [at UVA] were thinkers who have argued America is systemically racist, including Duke University professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva — a sociologist who has claimed that America has normalized “the standards of white supremacy.” A separate contract obtained by The Daily Wire shows UVA’s diversity, equity, and inclusion division sponsored Silva’s November 2020 Zoom event for $10,000. Silva did not return a request for comment.
On top of that, Kaminsky writes, “the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee paid $45,000, or about $207 per minute, for Kendi to promote his books and train faculty and students.”
A spokesperson for UVA defended the talk to the Daily Wire on diversity of opinion grounds, telling Kaminsky that “the University of Virginia welcomes speakers from a broad array of perspectives to our Grounds every academic year and we often do pay speakers fees or other compensation. Offering our community access to a diverse set of speakers and points of view is an important part of our academic mission.”
Of course, Kendi’s talk didn’t really inject any substantive ideological diversity into UVA, given that his point of view is now the norm on elite college campuses across the country. Real diversity of opinion would require hosting speakers and events who actually questioned campus orthodoxy, rather than reaffirming it. But as Kaminsky wrote, UVA “notably refused to officially recognize [the Young America’s Foundation] campus chapter in 2017, before changing course on the heels of a letter from the legal group Alliance Defending Freedom alleging violations of state law and the First Amendment.” Academic freedom for me, but not for thee.
As Kaminsky pointed out, this isn’t the first time Kendi has profiteered off of his critical race theory grift. A 2021 College Fix analysis found that he was paid at least $300,000 for his lectures in recent years. Seven of those contracts alone topped out at $91,500. Beyond exorbitant speaker fees, Kendi shook former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey down for a $10 million dispensation for the public intellectual’s “Center for Antiracist Research” at Boston University in 2020.
I guess “systemic racism” means prominent black intellectuals hauling in unspeakable gobs of cash in exchange for accusing the country of racial animus and oppression. Seems like a pretty good deal to me.