Nikole Hannah-Jones announced on Tuesday, July 6, that she has declined The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s tenure offer and will instead join the faculty of Howard University.
Hannah-Jones made the announcement on Tuesday’s episode of “CBS This Morning,” saying, “Well I’ve decided to decline the offer of tenure. I will not be teaching on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was a very difficult decision, not a decision I wanted to make, and instead I’m going to be the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University.”
The Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist’s rejection of the offer comes after a back and forth between the UNC Board of Trustees and members of the school community.
The University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Media and Journalism announced earlier this year that Hannah-Jones would be the newest Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism, a professorship that typically comes with tenure. However, despite approval from faculty and the tenure committee, the MacArthur Fellow was offered a five-year teaching contract instead after the Board of Trustees did not act on the faculty’s recommendation.
Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize for her work on “The 1619 Project,” which “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United States’ national narrative.” The project’s name is derived from the year in which Africans first arrived in Virginia via slave ships. The mostly Republican UNC Board of Governors has been critical of Hannah-Jones in the past.
Hannah-Jones was set to begin July 1, but her legal team said she would not accept the position if it did not come with tenure. In the aftermath of the board’s initial decision to offer Hannah-Jones tenure, 42 faculty members signed a letter demanding an explanation, while demonstrators gathered on campus to protest the decision.
Then, on June 30, the board approved tenure for Hannah-Jones by a vote of 9-4.
“I am so incredibly honored to be joining one of the most important and storied educational institutions in our country . . . ” Hannah-Jones said in a statement. “One of my few regrets is that I did not attend Howard as an undergraduate, and so coming here to teach fulfills a dream I have long carried.”
She continued, “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.“
At Howard, Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates will found a new Center for Journalism and Democracy, which will train students in investigative journalism.
Coates, a Howard alumnus, will become a faculty member in the College of Arts and Science, while Hannah-Jones will join faculty in the school of communications.
Coates gained notoriety for his 2014 article in The Atlantic titled “The Cas for Reparations,” and is also the author of the bestseller “Between the World and Me.” The appointments are supported by a $20 million donation from the MacArthur, Knight and Ford foundations and an anonymous donor.
Howard University President Wayne A. I. Frederick applauded the two appointments in a statement.
“At such a critical time for race relations in our country, it is vital that we understand the role of journalism in steering our national conversation and social progress,” he said. “Not only must our newsrooms reflect the communities where they are reporting, but we need to infuse the profession with diverse talent. We are thrilled that they will bring their insights and research to what is already a world-class, highly accomplished team of professors.”
Susan King, dean of UNC’s journalism school, offered Hannah-Jones well-wishes in a statement in response to her decision to reject the tenure offer.
“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.
On Twitter, users responded to Hannah-Jones’ decision to reject the offer. “UNC doesn’t deserve her,” one user wrote.
“That’s what they get,” said another.
Marc Lamont Hill called the decision “the bossest of all boss moves.”
