Free Republic

Boston University Professor Ibram Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research appears to have fired mostly racial minorities as part of its recent restructuring, according to a College Fix analysis of the layoffs. The review found there are likely four black employees, four Hispanics, two Indians, one Asian, and one Middle Eastern employee who are no longer employed by the antiracist center due to layoffs. One reason may be that the center was more inclined to hire non-white staff from the beginning. But according to Kendi, any policy that results in racial disparities flows from and is proof of racism. “A racist...

In September of 2020, just weeks after Ibram X. Kendi launched the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, the school approved a $600,000 mortgage to an unnamed professor. The university won’t say which professor that loan went to, but it was doled out to a trust controlled by Ibram X. Kendi’s brother-in-law, Macharia Edmonds. The mortgage helped to cover the down payment for a $4.56 million luxury penthouse triplex that boasts the "best of sophisticated Boston living." Public real estate records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show the trust is controlled by Edmonds, a former Obama campaign official...

Did you catch that? None of this is really Kendi’s fault, it’s the system, man. If the left wasn’t so driven by fads and celebrity, this wouldn’t have happened. Why wouldn’t it have happened? Because Kendi never would have been given all of that money in the first place. This is the best defense she can come up with. It’s not Kendi’s fault he was unprepared and undisciplined, it’s everyone else’s fault for believing in him. Come to think of it, this is pretty much the same hokum that is central to Kendi’s own work. His great insight is that...

Current and former staff at Boston University's Center for Antiracist Research, gave a scathing assessment of its leadership, fiscal management and inability to meet goals, in Thursday's student newspaper. "The Center has very, very much failed to deliver on its promise. It’s been a colossal waste of millions of dollars," Spencer Piston told the student newspaper, The Daily Free Press. Piston is an associate professor of political science, who works as the faculty lead in the Policy office at the Center for Antiracist Research "CAR." Staff and faculty spoke out after CAR recently laid off at least 15-20 employees. Boston...

<p>BOSTON — The revelation last week that a laboratory slip-up led three Boston University scientists to become infected with tularemia, a flulike disease sometimes referred to as "rabbit fever," has fueled criticism of a plan to build a state-of-the-art research lab to study some of the world's most lethal germs in Boston's South End.</p>

Public officials concealed their conflicts of interest and role in funding research that may have caused the pandemic, says health reporter Emily Kopp.Journalists and scientists routinely dismissed the lab leak hypothesis as a crackpot theory and even as "racist," up until the summer of 2021 when science journalist Nicholas Wade published an influential article, and a viral rant by Jon Stewart pushed it into the mainstream. Until that point, social media platforms had been removing or throttling posts that took it seriously. Anthony Fauci, who didn't respond to our interview request, said it wasn't worth even considering the possibility that...

Reports on Monday had said the school's National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories had created a new, deadlier version of the virus There's some friction between the federal government and Boston University researchers after the publication of a new COVID-19 study. BU said reports by some publications saying they had created a new "deadly" COVID strain are misleading and untrue. “First, this research is not gain-of-function research, meaning it did not amplify the Washington state SARS-COV-2 virus strain (original virus from 2020) or make it more dangerous,” BU said in a statement, calling online reports Monday "false and inaccurate." "In fact,...

A senior US health official today admitted that controversial Covid manipulation research carried out in a laboratory in Boston was not authorized — despite being funded by taxpayer money. DailyMail.com exclusively revealed yesterday that a team from Boston University had developed a hybrid Covid virus — combining the Omicron and original Wuhan strains — which had an 80 per cent lethality rate. Public records indicate it was partly paid for using a grant awarded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the federal government's main research agencies. As part of any Government-funded research grants, teams...

Boston University issued a statement Tuesday defending its research of a COVID-19 Omicron strain when they took the variant’s spike protein and attached it to the original COVID-19 strain, leading to a higher mortality rate in a certain species of mice, triggering concern among lawmakers.“The Omicron S-bearing virus robustly escapes vaccine-induced humoral immunity, mainly due to mutations in the receptor-binding motif… while Omicron causes mild, non-fatal infection, the Omicron S-carrying virus inflicts severe disease with a mortality rate of 80 percent,” the preprint study said.One lawmaker, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), said that the research entailed “lethal gain of function virus...

Boston University scientists were today condemned for 'playing with fire' after it emerged they had created a lethal new Covid strain in a laboratory. DailyMail.com revealed the team had made a hybrid virus — combining Omicron and the original Wuhan strain — that killed 80 per cent of mice in a study. The revelation exposes how dangerous virus manipulation research continues to go on even in the US, despite fears similar practices may have started the pandemic. Professor Shmuel Shapira, a leading scientist in the Israeli Government, said: 'This should be totally forbidden, it's playing with fire.' Gain of function...

US researchers have developed a new lethal Covid strain in a laboratory – echoing the type of experiments many fear started the pandemic. The mutant variant — which is a hybrid of Omicron and the original Wuhan virus — killed 80 percent of mice infected with it at Boston University. When a similar group of rodents were exposed to the standard Omicron strain, however, they all survived and only experienced 'mild' symptoms.

While some of the fiscal Republicans remain in office and continue to work hard in defense of the pre-MAGA Republican agenda by supporting bipartisan legislation, they are largely outshined by election deniers and Trump-endorsed candidates. Representative Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, just lost her primary to the Trump backed candidate in Wyoming, known as Cheney territory, after taking a stand against former President Trump and fighting to preserve our democracy. It’s a notable example of just how great the influence of MAGA Republicans in fact is. GOP establishment figures like the Cheneys are being pushed...

A group of students at Boston University has brought a vending machine to campus that dispenses Plan B at a lower cost for students, NBC Boston reported. Plan B, also known as the morning-after pill, is a form emergency contraception that can prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex or when another birth control method might’ve failed. The vending machine, one of the first of its kind in the country, is located in the basement of the student union on Boston University's campus, NBC Boston reported. Instead of snacks, the machine is stocked with a generic version of Plan B (levonorgestrel) sold...

Boston University professor said the Republican Party is making it hard for individuals to learn about history. A professor at Boston University said that Republicans are "the party of white supremacy." In an op-ed for The Atlantic, Ibram X. Kendi, Boston University Andrew W. Mellon professor in the Humanities and Director of the Center for Antiracist Research said that Republicans are not the party of "any group of parents," but rather "the party of white supremacy." Kendi wrote in the op-ed that Republican opposition to critical race theory means it is "clearly" not the party of parents. "The Republican Party...

Turkish archaeologists excavating the site of the city of Troy on the hills of Hisarlik have discovered a large wooden structure that they believe are the remains of the famous Trojan Horse.Archaeologists who claimed they had unearthed remnants of the legendary Trojan Horse in Turkey have now found significant evidence that further supports their claim, according to an article by the Greek Reporter. Turkish archaeologists excavating the site of the city of Troy on the hills of Hisarlik have discovered a large wooden structure that they believe are the remains of the Trojan Horse. These excavations include dozens of fir...

While Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez represents part of the Bronx and Queens, she's not really a New Yorker. Although born in the Bronx, the socialist congresswoman was brought up in non-diverse, chi-chi Yorktown Heights (median household income: $137,580) and attended pricy Boston University (annual tuition: $58,560). Her policies has been disastrous for her constituents, whether on a local or national scale. Now she has a challenger. Tina Forte, a Bronx native, an athlete, a passionate MAGA-supporter and patriot, and a social influencer with a sizable following has announced her candidacy and has a knock-yer-socks-off introductory campaign video. What Forte has is grit,...

A Boston University professor tweeted Saturday that the term “legal vote” is “functionally racist.” “The term ‘legal vote’ is as fictionally fraught and functionally racist as the terms ‘illegal alien’ and ‘race neutral’ and ‘welfare queen’ and ‘handouts’ and ‘super predator’ and ‘crackbaby’ and ‘personal responsibility’ and ‘post racial,’” Ibram X. Kendi tweeted.

People with a vitamin D deficiency are 54% more likely to test positive for the new coronavirus. Members of predominantly black and Hispanic communities have been found to be most at risk, according to a new study.The study, SARS-CoV-2 positivity rates associated with circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels, published in the journal PLOS ONE, was conducted by Dr. Michael Holick, professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at Boston University School of Medicine and a team of researchers from the clinical laboratory Quest Diagnostics.Holick and his team examined 190,000 blood samples from coronavirus tests performed March 9 through June 19 collected in...

When a researcher from a Chinese military academy applied to study with celebrated Boston University physicist Eugene Stanley, he said her affiliation didn’t raise red flags.“I’m not interested at all in politics. I’m a scientist,” said Mr. Stanley, whose wide-ranging research has included using artificial intelligence to decode financial markets and applying statistical physics to prevent diseases.The recent indictment of the researcher, who is accused of lying on her U.S. visa application to conceal she is a lieutenant in the Chinese military, shows how U.S. universities’ openness to international collaboration in cutting-edge research leaves them vulnerable to potential exploitation.Mr. Stanley...

The Department of Justice announced today that the Chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department and two Chinese nationals have been charged in connection with aiding the People’s Republic of China.  Dr. Charles Lieber, 60, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, was arrested this morning and charged by criminal complaint with one count of making a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement.  Lieber will appear this afternoon before Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler in federal court in Boston, Massachusetts.Yanqing Ye, 29, a Chinese national, was charged in an indictment today with...