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--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Boston University launches an investigation into Ibram X. Kendi's Center for Anti-Racist Research. What are insiders saying about the center's challenges and where did all the money go? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's September 23rd, and this is a Saturday edition of Morning Wire.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): After six private grocery stores fled crime-ridden parts of Chicago, the mayor announced a plan to open city-run stores in the name of racial justice and food equity. I think that's a good idea that Mayor Johnson is picking up the slack where these big store chains are leaving. And the immigrant population in the United States has hit another record high due to both legal and illegal immigration, Which groups are seeing the biggest increases? Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): We have the news you need to know.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Author and activist Ibram X. Kendi is under fire for allegedly mismanaging finances and exploiting staff at the Center for Anti-Racist Research at Boston University. Half of the center's staff has now been laid off, and the university says it's conducting an inquiry. Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham is here now with more.
--:-- Megan Basham: So Megan, Kendi became something of a lightning rod in 2020. Listeners may know him because he wrote that bestseller, How to Be an Anti-Racist. He's also been associated with Critical Race Theory. And he was also given an entire department at BU to pursue this kind of work, although now that seems to be imploding. What happened?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, you know, what's interesting is Boston University actually founded the center specifically as a bid to recruit Kendi in June of 2020, which we will all remember was shortly after George Floyd's death. Well, Jean Morrison, who was then the provost and chief academic officer at BU, said she worked for more than a year to launch the center, specifically with Kendi in mind. So this was what she told Boston TV station WFTX three years ago about why the school wanted him so badly. He has the capacity to identify and develop sort of the rigorous framework for understanding these deeply rooted problems.
--:-- Megan Basham: So right after BU launched that center to great fanfare with, of course, Kendi as its leader, the center then received a flood of donations from big companies, big grant makers. Twitter, now X, for example, gave the center $10 million. The Rockefeller Foundation provided another $1.5 million. But in the three-plus years since it was launched, the center has produced only two original research papers. And even those were co-authored with academics from other institutions. And then as John noted, there have been massive layoffs. And Kendi says the center is now moving to a fellowship model. So where did all that money go?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, that is the big question because BU has offered no accounting for it yet. And some former staffers say they did start warning the administration that this center was mismanaging finances as long as two years ago. So now you have a number of faculty who were involved with the center openly criticizing Kendi. BU Associate Professor of Political Science Spencer Piston acted as a faculty lead of the policy office and he told the Boston Globe which was the outlet that broke this story that the problem developed because the university entrusted so much power and authority into the hands of one human being by whom he meant Kendi.
--:-- Megan Basham: A professor of African American studies, Saida Grundy, told The Globe that the center was exploitative. Another faculty member, Philip Copeland, said that the center, and I'm quoting him, was just fundamentally mismanaged and had committed employment violence and trauma. Employment violence, what's that? You know, that's a good question. He didn't say, and I'm not sure. But I do think it's important to note that all of these sources made their comments on the record. They provided their names, and that can be a little bit unusual in cases like this.
--:-- Megan Basham: So external critics are also pointing out that Kendi has been focused on promoting his personal project during all of this, things like a graphic novel, a podcast, a TV series for ESPN+. He even reportedly took a months-long leave of absence from this center earlier this year. So beyond salaries, it's kind of hard to tell what this money funded. So Kendi is really under fire here. How is he responding?
--:-- Megan Basham: He did put out a statement on Twitter, or of course, as we call it now, X, saying that the center made missteps. But then he went on to say that leaders of color and women leaders are often held to different standards and routinely have their authority questioned or undermined. He said after that that he welcomes BU's inquiry. But a BU spokeswoman told me in an email that the school is expanding that inquiry to include the center's culture and also complaints about mismanagement. And she did also include a note of support for Kendi. She said this, and quoting, We recognize the importance of Dr. Kendi's work and the significant impact it has had on anti-racist thinking and policy.
--:-- Megan Basham: And she also added that Kendi and BU, again quoting, believe strongly in the center's mission and that he takes strong exception to the allegations made in recent complaints and media reports. Kendi also said in his statement that his center isn't alone in having to respond to new realities for nonprofits. And some context for this is that progressive grantmakers have been tightening their purse strings generally. So left-wing nonprofits are having to tighten their belts in response. We don't know yet if that was a factor here, but we do know that Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club, the climate change group, Sunrise Movement, all of those have had layoffs recently. So there has been a lot of discussion about why. And some pundits have suggested that everything from President Trump being less visible to maybe inflation, all of those things could have contributed. But all of that said, mismanagement claims like this are probably not helping.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Yeah, probably not. Megan, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Megan Basham: Anytime.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Amid a worsening crime epidemic, Chicago's Democratic mayor announced a plan for a city-owned grocery store, which he says will promote food equity and address the exit of corporate grocery stores. Here to discuss the controversial project is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presta-Giacomo.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Hey, Amanda.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): So this would be the largest government-owned grocery store in the U.S. if it were to actually be developed. That's right. What is Mayor Brandon Johnson's arguments for funding this?
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Well, they center around racial justice. In a statement put out last week, Johnson said that six grocery stores have left the South and West sides of Chicago in just the past two years. This, he said, has led to inequitable access to food retail, and he broke that down by race. He said 37 of Black residents and 29 of Latino residents are food insecure compared to 19 overall Those arguing for government intervention say it needed because many residents live in so food deserts That was a term popularized by Michelle Obama. It's used to indicate places where people rely on fast food or convenience stores for their daily sustenance instead of healthier options.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: They argue this is due to distance from a grocery store or simply poverty. One thing that's undeniably true that was noted by Mayor Johnson is that corporate grocery stores like Walmart and Whole Foods, for example, they are continuing to leave Chicago. And crime appears to be a major factor in that decision, correct?
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: It seems to be. As many will remember, Chicago was hit hard with looting and crime during those George Floyd riots a few years ago. That really hurt the city. and thefts are reportedly up 25% from just last year. We know violent crime is still raging in Chicago, despite Johnson promising to tackle that issue. He promoted a community safety team, for example. That so far has not worked. And when Walmart announced the closure of four stores in Chicago's South and West Side neighborhoods back in April, it said this was due to a lack of profitability going back 17 years when they first opened there. It said, quote, these stores lose tens of millions of dollars a year and their annual losses nearly doubled in just the last five years.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: The statement did not specifically mention shoplifting. However, Walmart CEO Doug McMillan did warn last year that if shoplifting across the country didn't slow down, they'd have to shut down some stores. And here they are doing just that. Funding grocery stores will not be cheap. What would be the cost of something like this for the city, which is already struggling financially?
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: We don't have an exact estimate yet for the price tag on something like this, But as you mentioned, it was just last week that we heard the mayor announce a projected deficit of $538 million for this upcoming fiscal year. Interestingly, though, the mayor's chief of policy, Umi Grisby, she's claiming this project won't use taxpayer dollars. Here she is on CBS Chicago.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: We are not spending any taxpayer dollars, right? What we're also going to be able to access is the funding that exists at the national level, at the state level. To be frank, that's pretty misleading. She states that they will be accessing state and national funding. So that obviously comes from taxpayers. And then the mayor's office has already said they'll use economic grant money, which also comes from taxpayers.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: I suppose the office's claim is that they won't use local taxpayer money, but that still doesn't seem to hold up. Right. State and federal taxpayer money at play here. Now, not everyone's a fan of this idea. What have we heard from opponents? What are their arguments?
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: They're what you would expect. Some have strongly criticized this as akin to Soviet-style central planning. Detractors have highlighted the city's penchant for corruption. They've pointed to that half a billion dollar deficit and asked how anyone should expect this government to be efficient with tax dollars. Others suggest the real issue here are those soft on crime policies. When that changes and crime is under control, you'll see more businesses, more grocery stores in the city.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: And then there are other questions like, how are the prices set? In what ways would this be superior to private grocery stores? How would this affect private enterprise? And so on. Yeah, certainly a lot of questions still to be answered. But we'll keep an eye on the movement of this project.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Amanda, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Amanda Presta-Giacomo: Sure thing.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): The immigrant population in the United States hit a record high last year as the number of both legal and illegal immigrants ramped up Daily Wire investigative reporter Maraid Elordi is here with the details.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Hi, Georgia. Right. So the number of U.S. residents born in another country rose by almost a million last year. The immigrant population hit a record 46.2 million people. That's according to new U.S. Census estimates. So this means immigrants are now nearly 14 percent of the total U.S. population. And that number only includes documented immigrants, correct?
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Right. Or at least immigrants that the surveys were able to capture. So the number was driven up in 2022 by increased levels of legal immigration through visas and refugee programs. Those are now back in full swing after being put on hold during the pandemic. The Biden administration has also accepted tens of thousands of refugees from Afghanistan in 2021 and Ukraine in 2022.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: There have also been more than 2 million illegal migrants released into the interior since Biden took office. Now, we spoke to Jeffrey Passell. He's a senior demographer at the Pew Research Center. Passell gave us some insight into the data. It's worth pointing out that these data relate to kind of the middle of 2022, which is before a lot of the recent surges. But some of the people who came in through the southern border are included here as well. So it's a combination of all of these factors.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Now, do we know where these immigrants are primarily coming from? Well, so historically, the majority have come from Mexico. But Pasell told us the census data shows the U.S. is seeing more people from Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, even Honduras. But Mexico still has the largest immigrant population in the U.S. We have almost 11 million immigrants from Mexico. But the number of new Mexican immigrants is actually decreasing.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: The U.S. is also seeing significant growth in immigrants from Africa and Asia, including China, as well as a large increase of Afghan immigrants. So where are immigrants primarily settling once they get to the U.S.? Well, Florida took in 200,000 immigrants last year. That was the biggest increase by far of any state. That's according to the Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Other states that saw significant increases in new immigrants were Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Iowa. And of course, several major U.S. cities are scrambling to address a migrant crisis from thousands of new illegal migrants crossing the border and showing up in need of food and shelter. In New York City, more than 113,000 migrants have arrived since last year.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: And as we've reported, Mayor Eric Adams announced citywide budget cuts to deal with the migrant issue. He warned earlier this month that the migrant crisis will destroy New York City. Adams is also now signaling that it might be time to limit the city's right to shelter laws. Chicago has a similar migrant crisis. The mayor is pushing for dozens of huge tent structures that could house 200 migrants each.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: So overall, the immigrant share of America's population is getting bigger. While a major demographic shift that's going to have a lot of downstream effects.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Mara, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Thanks, Georgia.
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Thank you for listening this morning. Our mission on Morning Wire is to bring more balance to the national conversation. If you stand with that mission and enjoy the show, please consider subscribing, giving us a five-star rating, and most importantly, sharing our podcast with a friend. That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back later this afternoon with an extra edition of Morning Wire.
