A senior State Department official met with Ibram X. Kendi, the controversial critical race theory proponent and Boston University professor who has called for the creation of a federal “department of antiracism” with unmatched constitutional authority.
Desirée Cormier Smith, the U.S. special representative for racial equity and justice, traveled to Boston to meet with Kendi earlier this month.
In a summary of the meeting posted to Cormier Smith’s official Twitter account, she described discussing with Kendi, who leads BU’s Center for Antiracist Research, “the ongoing, global impact of white supremacy & the importance of collective effort across sectors to build a world where racial & ethnic equity & social justice prevail.”
Given her role as a senior State Department official, Cormier Smith’s move to huddle with Kendi is a noteworthy one, potentially shedding light on State’s diplomatic efforts to make racial equity a center of the administration’s foreign policy. Cormier Smith has previously called for the abolition of the Electoral College, asserting that “racism and slavery are at the root of this peculiar way to elect a president.”
Kendi gained fame when his book How to Be an Antiracist became a best-seller. His broad conception of “antiracism” has gained cultural currency on the left, and he’s described criticism of critical race theory by “Republican operatives” as conjuring “an imagined monster to scare the American people and project themselves as the nation’s defenders from the fictional monster.”
In practice, Kendi seeks to advance a far-reaching constitutional overhaul to enshrine his theory of antiracism, as wrote in a piece for Politico in 2019.
He proposed a constitutional “amendment [that] would make unconstitutional racial inequity over a certain threshold, as well as racist ideas by public officials (with ‘racist ideas’ and ‘public official’ clearly defined).” The amendment would also establish and “permanently fund” an executive-branch department of racism that would be “comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees.”
The department would monitor all local, state, and federal policies for antiracism, as well as monitor all government officials “for expressions of racist ideas” and discipline public officials “who do not voluntarily change their racist policy ideas.”
Kendi is also the author of the best-seller Antiracist Baby, a picture book explaining his theories for children.
He got himself in hot water in 2020 for tweeting about the race of then–Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s children. While his comments were widely interpreted as suggesting that the justice had adopted black children from Haiti to use as “props,” he later made posts clarifying the comments.
“Whether this is Barrett or not is not the point. It is a belief too many White people have: if they have or adopt a child of color, then they can’t be racist,” he wrote.
National Review asked the State Department a series of questions about the meeting between Kendi and Cormier Smith, including how Kendi’s work has shaped the State Department’s work on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and why it chose to engage with such a controversial figure. NR also asked if the State Department believes that other countries should adopt a version of Kendi’s “department of antiracism” proposal.
A spokesperson said only that “the Department engages a wide range of civil society actors and other stakeholders around the world on human rights and democratic values,” while declining to offer further details about the meeting.
Kendi’s press representative did not respond to a request for comment asking about the meeting.
Meanwhile, the State Department’s work to make DEI principles a significant part of U.S. foreign policy continues.
The meeting with Kendi took place against the backdrop of the White House’s new budget request, which seeks well over $83 million to support State’s effort to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility principles — the federal government’s version of DEI. Among other things, the budget request outlines that the department hopes to counter Russian and Chinese propaganda narratives by teaching people about DEI.
Last year, State updated its guidelines for foreign-service officers to receive promotion, stipulating that they must “[advance] diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion in words and actions.”