Nikole Hannah-Jones will not join UNC-Chapel Hill faculty after tenure controversy

Nikole Hannah-Jones will not be teaching at UNC-Chapel Hill this fall, she revealed on “CBS This Morning” on Tuesday in her first on-the-record interview since her tenure application blew up into a national story.

Instead, she’ll be an inaugural Knight Chair at Howard University.

Hannah-Jones was to join the UNC-CH faculty as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, but will instead be teaching in that role at Howard. She was awarded tenure by UNC-CH trustees with a 9-4 vote last week after weeks of public pressure and criticism.

Hannah-Jones said her tenure was originally delayed because of interference from political appointees and from Walter Hussman Jr., who gave the UNC-CH journalism school its largest gift ever.

“It’s pretty clear that my tenure was not taken up because of political opposition, because of discriminatory views against my viewpoints and, I believe, because of my race and my gender,” Hannah-Jones said.

“It has to be made clear: I went through the official tenure process, and my peers in academia said that I was deserving of tenure,” she said. “The board members are political appointees who decided that I wasn’t.”

In the past, UNC-CH’s Knight Chairs have been granted tenure, but trustees originally set aside her tenure application to explore “questions.” Hannah-Jones is a Black woman, MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient and Pulitzer Prize winner who has researched and written extensively on the effects of racism in American society. She was the creator of The New York Times’ 1619 Project about the lasting impacts of slavery.

Joining Howard University, an HBCU

Hannah-Jones and author Ta-Nehisi Coates, who is also a MacArthur Fellow, will join Howard’s faculty to establish the Center for Journalism and Democracy. Their appointments are supported by a $20 million donation from the MacArthur, Knight and Ford foundations and an anonymous donor.

Hannah-Jones said she has been very thoughtful about her decision to go to the private, historically Black university in Washington, D.C. She said she gained clarity through the situation at UNC-CH.

“Since the second grade when I started being bused into white schools, I’ve spent my entire life proving that I belong in elite white spaces that were not built for Black people,” Hannah-Jones said.

“I decided that I didn’t want to do that anymore, that Black professionals should feel free — and actually perhaps an obligation — to go to our own institutions and bring our talents and resources to our own institutions and help to build them up as well.“

Hannah-Jones said she fought the battle that she wanted to fight, which is being treated equally and to have a vote on her tenure appointment.

“I won that battle. But it’s not my job to heal the University of North Carolina,” Hannah-Jones said. “That’s the job of the people in power who created this situation in the first place.”

The Knight Foundation announced the new chair — the first in more than a decade — on its website Tuesday.

In the announcement, the foundation said that Howard is “the right university at the right moment to receive an endowment to establish a chair in Race and Journalism. Howard has a tradition of academic excellence and is known for the development of American leaders. At a time when digital, television, radio and newspaper newsrooms are scrambling to hire journalists who reflect the communities they cover, Howard is ideally positioned to train the next generation of Black journalists.

“Our investment in Howard will not only endow an academic Knight Chair but also boost journalism education at other Historically Black Colleges and Universities.”

The foundation has now funded 26 chairs for journalism professors at 23 universities, it said, and the one at Howard will help diversify the industry.

“Training more Black reporters, editors and future newsroom leaders is vital to the future of journalism, which is most effective when newsrooms reflect the communities they cover,” the foundation said. “Journalism is vital to democracy, and inclusive journalism is vital to building the truly representative, multi-ethnic democracy that America is capable of modeling for the world.”

The foundation said its $5 million investment at Howard includes $500,000 for the Knight Chair to help launch a symposium to strengthen journalism teaching across HBCUs. The first one will take place on Howard’s campus and include students and faculty from at least 20 HBCUs. It will expand to include students and faculty from 50 HBCUs, the foundation said.

How Hannah-Jones got tenure at UNC

When trustees set aside her tenure application, the journalism school offered Hannah-Jones the Knight chair appointment with a five-year, fixed-term contract as a professor at $180,000 per year, with the option of applying for tenure later. Hannah-Jones accepted the offer, saying she would teach at UNC-CH and also keep her job at The New York Times.

In an interview with The News & Observer, Hannah-Jones said she took the job after seven months of pursuing tenure, securing housing in the area and notifying her bosses that she’d be teaching at UNC-CH.

She was told that the chancellor and the provost wanted her at Carolina, and this “workaround” is the only way that they can make that happen because it didn’t require board approval, she said.

“This is the option they had to bring me because the board was not going to vote on me,” Hannah-Jones said.

It was never about answering questions or waiting until the next meeting, she said, “they were not going to vote on my tenure.”

“I’ve been the target of constant attacks by the right for almost two years now,” Hannah-Jones said. “To have to publicly admit that they had won was a very hard thing for me.

“My choice was to take the contract to not complain or say anything publicly and just deal with the bait and switch,” she said.

Once it became public that Hannah-Jones had not been offered the same terms as previous Knight Chairs at UNC-CH, she said through her attorneys that she would not accept the job without tenure and she might sue the university for discrimination. Her tenure case sparked protests and criticism by students, faculty and alumni who said Hannah-Jones’ treatment by UNC-CH smacked of racism and a desire to restrict academic freedom, especially around discussions of race in America.

After weeks of social and legal pressure, UNC-CH Student Body President Lamar Richards initiated the call for a special meeting of the trustees to discuss the matter. Trustees voted Wednesday to grant tenure to Hannah-Jones. After the vote, her supporters and future colleagues in the journalism school welcomed her through tweets and public statements, but Hannah-Jones herself remained noncommittal.

Gayle King interviewed Hannah-Jones on “CBS This Morning.” She asked Hannah-Jones about the grounds for the board’s initial choice to set aside her tenure application.

Hannah-Jones said she was qualified to be a tenured Knight Chair and journalism professor based on her track record as a journalist, including her job at The New York Times, the awards she’s won and the work she’s published. She also noted the letters of recommendation from others in academia that were part of her tenure dossier.

“It is clear that I was credentialed enough to teach 18-year-olds how to do journalism at the University of North Carolina,” Hannah-Jones said.

“So I don’t think anyone can say that there was any other reason other than political appointees do not like the nature of my work,” she said. “And that is illegal discrimination.”

In an interview with The News & Observer, Hannah-Jones said she is still considering taking legal action against the university. A federal lawsuit is “still up in the air,” she said.

“The discrimination occurred,” Hannah-Jones said.

The fact that the board subsequently attempted to remedy things, after a great deal of pressure, doesn’t stop that.

“We still have no transparency, we still don’t know what happened and why,” Hannah-Jones said. “So, yeah we’re still determining what we will do going forward.”

UNC-CH’s journalism school is named after Walter Hussman Jr., who expressed concerns about Hannah-Jones and The 1619 Project to university leaders. Hussman told The News & Observer he has not “lobbied against her appointment” and has not talked to any trustees in months.

“I have not used my influence to determine who the school hires, as I realize that that is the sole authority of the University,” Hussman said in an emailed statement. “I certainly haven’t used any influence on the ideology of the school; in fact, I strongly believe a school of Journalism should not have an ideology. Their job is to teach journalism, not ideology.“

Hussman added that he does not think Hannah-Jones tried to “denigrate white Americans,” as Hannah-Jones said Hussman claimed in her full statement.

“I think all those individuals of different races who fought side by side to end slavery and champion civil rights should be celebrated for working together,” he said.

Hussman said he offered to meet with Hannah-Jones before the controversy ensued and would still like to talk with her and explain his concerns.

‘This is what we would want for her’

King asked Hannah-Jones if she had told UNC-CH she wouldn’t be taking the job in advance of her TV appearance.

Hannah-Jones said she had informed Susan King, dean of the journalism school, who she said had been a strong advocate for her.

In a statement, Susan King said she is disappointed by Hannah-Jones’s move, but this new opportunity at Howard offers her the chance to “invest in students and great journalism.”

”This is what we would want for her and the next generation of journalists,” King said.

The new Knight Chair position also means an even stronger investment in the future of the news industry because of Hannah-Jones and the issues raised by her tenure case, King said.

“We wish her nothing but deep success and the hope that UNC can learn from this long tenure drama about how we must change as a community of scholars in order to grow as a campus that lives by its stated values of being a diverse and welcoming place for all,” King said.

Hannah-Jones traveled to Chapel Hill over the weekend to meet with the Carolina Black Caucus and student protesters to tell them in person because she “didn’t want them to feel betrayed.”

She also told them she was grateful for their support and appalled at how they were treated at last week’s Board of Trustees meeting, when they were pushed out of the room by law enforcement after initially refusing to leave for a closed session.

Hannah-Jones said she had not told UNC-CH Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz and outgoing Provost Bob Blouin of her decision.

“But as for the chancellor and the provost, I didn’t, because I haven’t heard from them since this happened,” Hannah-Jones said. “So I didn’t feel the need.”

In a statement late Tuesday afternoon, Guskiewicz said, “I am disappointed that Nikole Hannah-Jones will not be joining our campus community as a member of our faculty. In my conversations with Nikole, I have told her I appreciated her passion for Carolina and her desire to teach on our campus. While I regret she won’t be coming to Chapel Hill, the students, faculty and staff of Howard University will benefit from her knowledge and expertise. We wish her the best.”

A ‘plantation mentality’ at UNC

More than 40 members of the UNC-CH journalism faculty released a statement Tuesday after learning Hannah-Jones declined the tenured appointment.

“While disappointed, we are not surprised,” they wrote. “We support Ms. Hannah-Jones’s choice. The appalling treatment of one of our nation’s most-decorated journalists by her own alma mater was humiliating, inappropriate, and unjust.

“We will be frank: it was racist.”

They said it is understandable why Hannah-Jones would “take her brilliance elsewhere” and that her fight will not be in vain.

The school is working toward “a full and transparent accounting” of what happened throughout the hiring process.

”We are reestablishing our autonomy, clarifying our values, and will demonstrate a model of faculty governance guided by diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging,” they wrote.

Members of the Carolina Black Caucus, which helped organize protests related to Hannah-Jones’s tenure, released a statement supporting Hannah-Jones’s decision “not to bring her time and talents” to UNC-CH. About 20 members of the group recently spoke up about how they feel undervalued as Black faculty and staff and said they are considering leaving the university.

“We completely understand the choice not to come to work at an institution that willfully disrespects you at every turn,” they wrote.

Journalism professor and member of the Faculty Executive Committee Deb Aikat said they are not only shocked, but frustrated.

“We feel that this is a great opportunity lost, and it’s been a very unfortunate series of developments,” Aikat said. “I don’t understand why we came to this, but here we are.”

Aikat said the environment has progressively gotten worse in his 26 years as a professor at UNC-CH.

“A lot of faculty members, especially people of color, feel that there is a plantation mentality, where people of color are treated like second-class citizens, as illustrated by the Board of Trustees’ action, or inaction if you will,” Aikat said.

UNC-CH leaders were silent and they looked the other way when this controversy was raging and are doing the same thing now, he said.

“I haven’t heard anything from our university leaders expressing concern,” Aikat said. “So that gives you an important indication about how our university leaders have become tone-deaf to these issues.”

UNC students continue to fight

UNC-CH senior and member of the Black Student Movement De’Ivyion Drew said she’s very disappointed in how the university treated Hannah-Jones in this case, but proud that “she transformed it into something that will benefit Black journalists for decades to come.”

Hannah-Jones took a situation that was “manipulated by administration, manipulated by a university that has hundreds of years of white supremacy behind it” and turned it into a tenured faculty position at Howard where she is creating “a foundation for Black journalists to achieve just as much as she has,” Drew said.

Drew is a long-standing organizer on campus who has been critical of UNC Police and how the university handled the Silent Sam Confederate Monument and legal settlement. Drew said UNC-CH wanted to give Hannah-Jones “crumbs,” and make her “beg for a position she was overqualified for.” Instead, the university lost her.

“This will require the administration to think about how they treat Black professors, how they treat Black students, and how Black students suffer every day as a result of white supremacy,” Drew said.

Richards, the student body president at UNC-CH, congratulated Hannah-Jones on Twitter and said this isn’t over.

“The fight was never for her to come to UNC, it was always bigger than that,” he tweeted. “History will remember this as the beginning of a revolution.“

Richards and leaders of the Carolina Black Caucus, Black Student Movement, Black Graduate and Professional Student Association are hosting a press conference at noon Wednesday at The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History on campus.

News & Observer reporter Nina Pasquini contributed to this story.

This story was originally published July 5, 2021 at 3:21 PM with the headline "Nikole Hannah-Jones will not join UNC-Chapel Hill faculty after tenure controversy."