Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and the Square cofounder, has donated $10 million to BU’s Center for Antiracist Research, which launched in July 2020. The gift was made through his charitable initiative, Start Small, and is unrestricted. That will allow founder and CAS History Professor Ibram X. Kendi and his team the flexibility to make the most of the money as they build out the Center.
Of the total gift, according to BU Today, $9 million will go to the “center’s endowment and $1 million will be available for immediate use, allowing the center to hire staff and fund its first research and policy teams on COVID-19 racial disparities.” It comes weeks after the nonprofit Vertex Foundation, part of the Boston-based company Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc., pledged $1.5 million to the Center through 2023.
The Center for Antiracism Research aims to convene researchers and practitioners from various disciplines to figure out novel and practical ways to understand, explain, and solve seemingly intractable problems of racial inequity and injustice. The goal of this work is to build an antiracist society that ensures equity and justice for all.