UNC board grants Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure

Trustees at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill voted Wednesday to grant award-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure after facing backlash from Black students and faculty who said the board’s initial refusal reflected a history of systemic racism at the school.

The 9-4 vote came after a three hour closed session.

The tenure approval came just one day before Hannah-Jones was set to officially join the Hussman School of Journalism and Media as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism.

Last month it was revealed that her appointment didn’t come with tenure, a break with tradition for that position.

Her legal team had said she would not take the position if it didn’t include tenure.

Hannah-Joned released a statement Wednesday saying she was “honored and grateful” for the support she has received, including the students who protested at the meeting.

“Today’s outcome and the actions of the past month are about more than just me,” Hannah-Jones said. “This fight is about ensuring the journalistic and academic freedom of Black writers, researchers, teachers, and students. We must ensure that our work is protected and able to proceed free from the risk of repercussions, and we are not there yet.”

The board’s initial refusal to give Hannah-Jones’ tenure sparked outcry from UNC’s Black community demanding that the board reconsider tenure for Hannah-Jones. Some professors there have publicly said they were reconsidering their willingness to remain at the university over the journalist’s treatment.

In early June, 42 faculty members from the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC penned a letter condemning the board for not granting Hannah-Jones tenure calling it “blatant disregard for time-honored tenure procedures and for the university and Board of Trustees’ endorsed values of diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter covering racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine and creator of the landmark 1619 Project.

“We welcome Nikole Hannah-Jones back to campus,” the UNC’s board vice chairman, Gene Davis, said at the close of statements after the three-hour special session of the trustees. “Our university is not a place to cancel people. Our university is better than that. Our nation is better than that,” he said.

“We embrace and endorse academic freedom and vigorous debate and constructive disagreement,” Davis said. He also said the campus was not a place for calling people “woke” or “racist.” The trustees, he said, had to endure terrible insults but could not respond for privacy reasons involving the decision.

(Photo/Sarah E. Freeman/Grady College, freemans@uga.edu in New York City, Georgia, on Saturday, May 21, 2016)