Nikole Hannah-Jones has declined UNC's offer, she announced Tuesday during an interview on “CBS This Morning," and will instead be the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University.
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The UNC Board of Trustees voted to approve Nikole Hannah-Jones' tenure application Wednesday after she was initially offered only a five-year, fixed-term contract. Many students feel Hannah-Jones is overqualified for the position and think she deserved tenure from the start.
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Faculty members are encouraged by the Board of Trustees' decision to approve Nikole Hannah-Jones' tenure, but they say this situation has been nothing new for people of color at UNC. “There's a constant crisis that’s happening,” professor Kathy Williams said. “What they're trying to do is run us out of here. They will not get the satisfaction of wearing me down.”
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When the meeting went into closed session, which is standard practice for the Board voting on matters like tenure, there was confusion and some demonstrators who refused to leave the room were forcibly removed by UNC Police.
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Trustees Dave Boliek, Haywood Cochrane, Allie Ray McCullen and John Preyer were the dissenting votes.
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The Board will hold a vote on Nikole Hannah-Jones' tenure case this week, according to NC Policy Watch. The vote will be officially announced on Monday morning.
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Many UNC academic departments, organizations and affiliates have written statements of support for Nikole Hannah-Jones. The Daily Tar Heel compiled the following departmental statements using their respective websites and public social media posts.
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On June 23, the Committee on Appointments, Promotion and Tenure released a statement calling the BOT to offer Nikole Hannah-Jones a tenured position at the University. “Every day that this case hangs in limbo is another day that damage is being done to this University that we all cherish,” the statement read.
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Nikole Hannah-Jones will not join the UNC faculty unless she is offered a tenured position, according to a letter obtained by NC Policy Watch. Hannah-Jones will also not start her position on July 1 as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism, according to the letter, which Hannah-Jones' legal team sent to the University on Monday.
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James Lewis Cates Jr., a 22-year-old Chapel Hill resident, was stabbed to death by members of a white supremacist biker gang near the Student Union on Nov. 21, 1970. The James Cates Remembrance Coalition sent a proposal to the chancellor on June 15 to rename the Student Stores Building after Cates.
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Chairperson of the Faculty Mimi Chapman wrote a letter, which she posted on Twitter Sunday, urging members of the UNC community to speak out as the Board of Trustees remains silent about the Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure situation. This comes after Student Body President Lamar Richards wrote an open letter to the UNC community Thursday encouraging prospective students and staff from marginalized communities to look elsewhere.
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Twenty-one members of the UNC Black Pioneers — an organization of Black alumni who graduated between 1952 and 1972 — released a statement on Wednesday regarding the Board of Trustees' non-action on the tenure of Nikole Hannah-Jones. “The undersigned members of the UNC Black Pioneers, fully support the joint statement of support for tenure for Nikole Hannah-Jones issued by the Carolina Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists at UNC,” the statement read.
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Walter Hussman talked to The Daily Tar Heel about his concerns regarding Nikole Hannah-Jones' hiring and her 1619 Project. He said he was concerned that her reputation would overshadow his core values, which are written on the wall of Carroll Hall and printed on the second page of his 10 newspapers.
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Hannah-Jones' legal team gave UNC a deadline of June 4 to offer her a tenured position or face a federal lawsuit, according to a letter obtained by NC Policy Watch on May 29. The Board of Trustees did not meet again by the deadline. “We look forward to continued dialogue with her counsel,” Joel Curran, vice chancellor for communications, said in a statement.
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Hundreds of Hussman School of Journalism and Media alumni have signed an open letter calling for immediate reconsideration of the UNC Board of Trustee's non-tenure of distinguished alumna Nikole Hannah-Jones.
Read More »"Should it become clear that Ms. Hannah-Jones will not be given a fair hearing and vote as has every other candidate for the position she will hold, faculty will no doubt leave this university. Why stay when promotion or tenure may be delayed or denied because of someone else’s politics?"
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In an open session, the Faculty Executive Committee discussed ways to request for the tenure case to be revisited by the Board. Mimi Chapman, chairperson of the faculty, said she also wanted members to consider next steps if their request is not positively received.
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The BOT's decision was met with indignation among UNC students, staff and faculty. Hussman doctoral student Sophia Noor Kiser said she felt Hannah-Jones was very qualified for the position. “Nikole-Hannah Jones is a MacArthur Genius, a Pulitzer Prize winner and has changed the conversation around race in the U.S,” she said. “What more could you want?”
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UNC Student Body President Lamar Richards was sworn in as the sole student representative on the Board of Trustees on Thursday. Richards is the University’s first Black, gay student body president. The ceremony was administered by Cheri Beasley, former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, who was the first Black woman to serve as chief justice.
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UNC and Chapel Hill community members gathered Thursday morning to show their support for Nikole Hannah-Jones ahead of the Board of Trustees' 9 a.m. meeting at The Carolina Inn. The rally was organized by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP and the Carolina Black Caucus in response to the BOT's choice to not take action on approving a tenured position for Hannah-Jones at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media.
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