Center for Antiracist Research

Our Mission: To build an antiracist society that ensures racial equity and social justice

The mission of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research is 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. We foster exhaustive racial research, research-based policy innovation, data-driven educational and advocacy campaigns, and narrative-change initiatives. We are working toward building an antiracist society that ensures equity and justice for all.

Read the Founder’s Statement by Ibram X. Kendi

What is antiracist research?

Whereas racist research historically has posed the question, “What is wrong with people?” antiracist research now asks a different question, a better question: “What is wrong with policies?” Our belief is that framing research on race and racism around antiracist questions leads to antiracist narratives, effective policy solutions, and impactful advocacy campaigns that cut to the root of racial inequality: racist policy.

Learn more about our research

Our Work

Our work, like our center, is in the process of being developed. But here are a few projects that we're working on.

New Video: Antiracist Futures

What does an antiracist future look like? What does a world that meets the needs of everyone feel like? What would our relationship be with the land, and with our neighbors? What kind of world is possible if we organize collectively to abolish racism?

Check It Out
Protesters gathered with hands in the air

Become a force for change. Donate.

Donors who give to the BU Center for Antiracist Research are the very foundation of our work to educate, empower, and bring about an antiracist society. Please support us in this essential mission.

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News

Read more about the center at BU and out in the larger world.

What is preventing Black and Brown people from being promoted at U.S. tech companies? Antiracist Tech Initiative Publishes New Paper

What is preventing Black and Brown people from being promoted at U.S. tech companies? A new paper from the BU Center for Antiracist Research's Antiracist Tech Initiative (ATI) strives to answer this research question.  Rather than focusing on "the pipeline problem,” a forthcoming paper co-authored by Dr. Sanaz Mobasseri, ATI’s faculty lead, examines structural forces that […]

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Addressing Racialized Harms of Incarceration: CAR’s Caitlin Glass Testified in front of Massachusetts Legislative Committee

On Tuesday, July 25, 2023, Caitlin Glass, the Policy Program Director at the BU Center for Antiracist Research, testified before the Massachusetts Joint Committee on the Judiciary. In her testimony, Glass shared CAR’s research and policy work regarding racism in the administration of felony murder laws, accomplice liability, and extreme sentencing in Massachusetts. Many incarcerated […]

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