UNC tries to explain Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure issue as criticism and protest mount

UNC-Chapel Hill trustees were met by more than three dozen students, faculty and community protesters Thursday who are upset that acclaimed journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones did not get tenure for a new position she will begin this summer.

Later in the day, UNC leaders attempted to clarify the issue as campus and national outcry continued to mount.

Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigative journalist and MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Grant” recipient who will join the UNC-CH faculty as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism in July.

The outrage from faculty, students and professional journalists stems from the fact that previous Knight Chairs have always been tenured positions at UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Hannah-Jones, however, will have a fixed-term “Professor of the Practice” position, with the option of being reviewed for tenure within five years.

Kim Talikoff of Chapel Hill joined two friends at Thursday morning’s protest on the sidewalk outside the Carolina Inn, where the Board of Trustees met. Talikoff said she was upset that UNC made a different deal with Hannah-Jones than with other Knight professors.

“I care deeply about freedom of speech and freedom of thought. I trust people to think critically, and I don’t think the university is a place where people ought to be afraid of ideas,” Talikoff said.

LeRoi Brashears said the problem is that UNC-CH doesn’t have the courage to acknowledge what he called its “racist foundation” or “root it out from its management.” He is a member of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the NAACP, but said he was not speaking for the organization.

“Every time you see them come to a juncture like this, they default to some spectacularly bigoted and racist move,” Brashears said.

Brashears noted Hannah-Jones’ professional accolades and experience, including her work on The 1619 Project, which explores the legacy and history of Black Americans and slavery.

He said there are “powerful people still running the university who don’t want the truth told about the institution of slavery in the United States.”

Why Hannah-Jones didn’t get tenure

During a brief press conference after the trustees meeting, Board Chairman Richard Stevens said Hannah-Jones was part of a slate of tenure candidates proposed by Provost Bob Blouin to be considered at the January 2021 board meeting. The board’s University Affairs Committee vets candidates on behalf of the board before the full vote for approval.

Before that January meeting, trustee Chuck Duckett, who chairs that committee, contacted Blouin with questions about Hannah-Jones. Duckett suggested they have more time to “postpone the review and consider those questions in her overall application,” which is not unusual, Stevens said.

Stevens said the board “took no action” regarding tenure for Hannah-Jones and “there was no decision” made denying her tenure. She accepted the fixed-term faculty position that was presented to her, he said.

Asked what questions or hesitations Duckett presented to Blouin, Stevens said for this “lifetime position” it’s not unusual to have “questions or clarifications about background, particularly candidates that don’t come from a traditional academic-type background.” He offered no specifics.

When asked, Stevens said he did not recall if any other candidates were brought into question.

Stevens and Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz took just five questions from reporters before ending the video news conference. The News & Observer asked afterward for clarity on a number of other questions, including what happened to the request after Duckett postponed it, whether Guskiewicz and Blouin were in favor of tenure, whether there was pressure put on Duckett or other trustees to slow the tenure, and the number of Black and women faculty members who have tenure.

Susan King, dean of the journalism school, said she was told that the trustees didn’t approve tenure to someone outside of academia, as Hannah-Jones is a professional journalist, not a professor. However, the Knight Chair is specifically designed to bring the best in their industry into higher education.

The Knight Foundation respects the independence of each school with these endowed chairs and does not appoint individuals, president Alberto Ibargüen said in a statement, noting Hannah-Jones’ “distinguished career in journalism.”

“It is not our place to tell UNC or UNC/Hussman who they should appoint or give tenure to,” Ibargüen said. “It is, however, clear to us that Hannah-Jones is eminently qualified for the appointment and would urge the trustees of the University of North Carolina to reconsider their decision within the timeframe of our agreement.”

At the press conference, Stevens said Hannah-Jones could be considered for tenure again before the five-year term of her contract.

‘Shame on you’

The trustees meeting was held in one of the large ballroom spaces at the Carolina Inn, with trustees spaced out at separate tables along the perimeter. As the meeting was about to start, protesters were allowed to come in. They filed in quietly, bringing their signs, some of them holding them above their heads.

Some of the signs said “Abolish the BOT” “#BlackHistoryMatters” “#BlackWomenMatter,” “Nikole Hannah Jones is all of us” and “UNC = Klan University lovers of racist ignorance!!”

As the meeting got underway, one protester said, “Shame on you. Shame on you.”

Then a few began to sing “We Shall Overcome.”

Stevens told demonstrators they were welcome to be there, but said if they interfered with the meeting, they would be asked to leave and could be subject to arrest.

Brashears continued to sing and say, “Shame,” and then left the room.

In the meeting, protesters applauded with finger snaps at the moment when incoming UNC Student Body President Lamar Richards mentioned the ongoing hatred and bigotry in North Carolina and the country, in an apparent nod to the issue at hand.

“If there is one thing that we have learned from the past year, it is that flexibility, patience and understanding are all virtues that one must hold, especially in navigating events as historic and inequitable as a global pandemic,” Richards said, “as well as the ongoing hatred and bigotry in our state and across the country towards Black individuals, towards individuals in the Asian American community, towards our transgender friends and community members.”

Later on in his speech, Richards said in the midst of adversity, “it is time for our university to rise to the challenge” and lead by example.

Most of the protesters left at the end of his speech.

Hannah-Jones, a Black woman who earned a master’s degree at UNC-CH, went through the extensive process to be granted tenure, gaining the support of UNC-CH faculty and academic administrators along the way.

Hannah-Jones has not responded to interview requests, but said ”I see you all and I am grateful” in a tweet Wednesday.

Controversy over The 1619 Project

The news of Hannah-Jones’s hiring sparked scrutiny from some conservatives critical of her work, particularly on The 1619 Project. Hannah-Jones’s piece won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, but has been attacked by some historians and politicians and led to a clarification from The New York Times.

One point that sparked debate was the claim that a “primary reason the colonists fought the American Revolution was to protect the institution of slavery,” according to The Times, which stood behind the work. It’s also been recently debated in Congress as an example of an educational program that teaches about systemic racism and slavery, though some politicians say it puts “advocacy ahead of historical accuracy,” The Times reported.

Dozens of UNC-CH faculty were stunned that Hannah-Jones didn’t receive tenure because they had been impressed by her work and 20-year career. They pointed to politics, race and gender as reasons behind the decision.

Associate Professor Deb Aikat told The News & Observer it sets a disturbing precedent that “in 2021, when we are in a racial reckoning, the UNC Board of Trustees declined to consider for tenure a prospective faculty of color.”

“Our faculty colleagues in UNC are troubled and tormented that conservative ire has forced the UNC Board of Trustees to back down from offering a tenured position to an acclaimed journalist like Nikole Hannah-Jones,” Aikat said.

Members of the UNC-CH Board of Trustees are appointed by state legislators and the UNC System Board of Governors. Current members of the Board of Governors have been appointed by a Republican-dominated state legislature.

Mimi Chapman, chair of the UNC-CH faculty, sent faculty the remarks she told trustees at a committee meeting Wednesday regarding their decision to “override a faculty recommendation regarding tenure.”

Chapman said she recognizes their right to do so, but their rumored concerns about Hannah-Jones’ teaching experience and academic background “make no sense as a reason” and damages the relationship between trustees and faculty. Their decision shows that trustees do not value faculty members’ “expertise, our judgment, our devotion to this institution, and indeed our time,” she said.

To get that message after all they’ve gone through is “devastating and demoralizing,” Chapman said.

“When we recommend tenure, we do so with a deep conviction that the person being tenured has ideas and work that are life changing and life affirming,” Chapman said, “even if that work and those ideas are controversial or difficult to sit with.”

The Raleigh-Apex NAACP issued a statement Thursday saying this is a “real case of cancel culture” because many of the arguments in The 1619 Project are “uncomfortable for people who want a sanitized notion of U.S. history.”

It said tenure was created for cases like this and to protect controversial work.

“Silencing dissenting views, like the 1619 Project, will have a “chilling effect” on scholars, especially women and scholars of color who might raise questions about the impact of systemic racism or gender discrimination on our society,” the statement said. “Instead of focusing on frivolous examples of ‘cancel culture,’ we should instead be standing up for academic freedom and for the often difficult work of confronting and coming to terms with our nation’s ‘original sin.’”

The National Association of Black Journalists said Thursday it was disappointed to learn Hannah-Jones’ position wouldn’t be tenured and reached out to the university to find out why.

“If issues of race or attempts to muffle the freedom of the press are at the core of this decision, NABJ will stand strongly against it and work to hold the university accountable,” the statement said.

NABJ President Dorothy Tucker added: “The university would be sending a message to its students that it does not support press freedom and that seeking the truth and reporting it is not a pillar it believes should be a part of our profession, and that the work of Black journalists, or any journalist, to expose the ills of slavery and its impact on America is unmerited.”

NABJ Academic Representative Jarrad Henderson said in the statement that this is “the latest in the history of unfair treatment of Black women in academia, who are often denied promotion despite exceptional work.”

Support from UNC-CH student leaders

Undergraduate student leaders published a letter written directly to Hannah-Jones’ telling her they are “frustrated and disappointed” by their university.

They told her they need her in Chapel Hill and are hopeful UNC leaders grant her the tenured contract she deserves. They said UNC does not create an environment for Black academics to flourish and it would be hypocritical to ask her to be in “an atmosphere that does not uplift, protect, or respect you.”

They said they cannot ask her to walk into a place where “where respect is minimal, criticism is high, and quantity is all too few for academics of color — especially Black women.”

But, if Hannah-Jones decides to come, they said she will find “a community of committed student leaders — activists, advocates, and representatives who stand behind you, recognize the impact of your work, and will support you from your first step on campus.”