According to the Associated Press, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones has won tenure at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The decision was announced on June 30 after pressure mounted on the university when they initially offered Hannah-Jones a five-year contract.
Hannah-Jones is the author of the 1619 Project, a long-form journalism project that teaches the truth about slavery in the United States and its role in our democracy. Many schools have embraced the 1619 Project and are integrating it into their history curriculums to educate students about slavery and racism. Other schools, however, seem to want to hide history and have gone to some lengths in doing so. According to the Miami Herald, Florida has banned the 1619 Project and critical race theory from its public school. Hannah-Jones won The Pulitzer Prize for the 1619 Project.
On June 25, several hundred students from the university protested in front of the chancellor’s office to demand that the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees reconsider tenure for Hannah-Jones. On June 30, a meeting was held with the trustees, who voted to accept Hannah-Jones’ tenure application. Hannah-Jones was initially offered a Knight chair position with a five-year contract at the University of North Carolina, when the position is historically offered with tenure. Tenure gives academic freedom and security to faculty members and protects their positions indefinitely.
Her application for tenure was paused in April after a donor to the University of North Carolina used his white privilege to intervene. Walter Hussman, Jr., whose name is on the school that he donated $25 million to in 2019, said that he had concerns about Hannah-Jones in an email to the dean of the journalism school.
“I worry about the controversy of tying the UNC journalism school to the 1619 project,” wrote Hussman. “I find myself more in agreement with Pulitzer prize winning historians like James McPherson and Gordon Wood than I do Nikole Hannah-Jones. These historians appear to me to be pushing to find the true historical facts. Based on her own words, many will conclude she is trying to push an agenda, and they will assume she is manipulating historical facts to support it. If asked about it, I will have to be honest in saying I agree with the historians.”
Trustee Charles Duckett also wanted more time to consider the journalist’s qualifications, but ultimately voted to give Hannah-Jones tenure. Last September, Hussman apparently had a problem with a part of the 1619 Project where Hannah-Jones said that Black people fought for civil rights mostly alone after WWII.
“For the most part, Black Americans fought back alone,” she wrote in The 1619 Project.
Ole’ fuddy-duddy got his in underwear in a bundle about that one and wrote an email to complain to the university.
“I think this claim denigrates the courageous efforts of many white Americans to address the sin of slavery and the racial injustices that resulted after the Civil War. Long before Nikole Hannah Jones won her Pulitzer Prize, courageous white southerners risking their lives standing up for the rights of blacks were winning Pulitzer prizes, too.”
Hannah-Jones didn’t officially respond to Hussman’s complaints but did release a statement saying that she shouldn’t be silenced for telling the truth.
“As a Black woman who has built a nearly two-decades long career in journalism,” she wrote. “I believe Americans who research, study, and publish works that expose uncomfortable truths about the past and present manifestations of racism in our society should be able to follow these pursuits without risk to their civil and constitutional rights.”
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The Pulitzer Prize winner said that she was honored to be offered tenure at UNC, and Hannah-Jones appeared to post a celebratory shot for the occasion on Twitter after the news was announced. She also made a stamentment after the announcement.
“This fight is about ensuring the journalistic and academic freedom of Black writers, researchers, teachers, and students,” she said. “We must ensure that our work is protected and able to proceed free from the risk of repercussions, and we are not there yet.”
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) June 30, 2021
The vote to was 9 to 4. Hannah-Jones began her new position as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism on July 1.
