1,619 UNC alumni and students back 1619 Project’s Nikole Hannah-Jones in newspaper ad

A group of UNC-Chapel Hill alumni and students — 1,619 to be exact — are supporting alumnus and 1619 Project author Nikole Hannah-Jones with a two-page advertising spread in Wednesday’s edition of The News & Observer.

The ad, paid for by Proud UNC Alumni, lists the names and graduation years for all 1,619 people. It calls for Hannah-Jones to receive tenure from UNC as she becomes the Knight Chair for Race and Investigative Journalism at UNC-CH starting in July.

Hannah-Jones’ contract is for five years but does not include tenure, even though previous Knight Chairs in the journalism school were tenured. The issue has created a firestorm for UNC in the past week, with some saying they think conservative politicians were behind the effort not to grant tenure.

Conservatives have criticized Hannah-Jones’ work on The 1619 Project for The New York Times. The project explores the legacy and history of Black Americans and slavery. It received the Pulitzer Prize.

“We are 1,619 University of North Carolina alumni outraged by the Board of Trustees’ failure to approve a tenured professorship for UNC alumna and founder of The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones,” the ad states.

“Dismissing a list of merits that includes winning a Pulitzer Prize, Peabody Award, and MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant is an attempt to penalize Nikole Hannah-Jones for her groundbreaking and unvarnished reporting of American history. We demand that the Board of Trustees immediately revisit this matter, grant tenure as recommended by the appropriate faculty, Dean, and Provost, and restore the integrity of our University.”

The core members of the group behind the ad were active during their time at UNC pushing to improve the campus for students of color.

Carmen Scott, a UNC-CH alumna who helped organize the effort, said “there’s still power in newspapers” and they wanted to add 1,619 voices to those who have already spoken out about the issue.

“If you open the newspaper and see our names and see our statement then you’ll know what we think,” Scott said. “These decisions get attention and then people have an idea of what the university is and we want to counter that.”

Scott said they don’t know the motive behind the tenure decision, or lack thereof, but it feels political.

“It does feel like they’re kind of joining this chorus against The 1619 Project,” Scott said, “and any historical take that doesn’t focus on America being the land of opportunity, but on it being a land of oppression, which is not untrue.”

Scott said Hannah-Jones would only be an asset to the university, particularly to students of color. She said they hope Hannah-Jones doesn’t take another job because of this slight.