Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones is declining to join the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ranks to accept a tenured job at Howard University, a historically Black institution in Washington, D.C.
The announcement deals a significant blow to UNC-Chapel Hill, which initially snubbed her application for tenure before granting her the status Wednesday after weeks of student and faculty outcry and media scrutiny.
In a statement, Hannah-Jones called out the university’s trustees to succumb to political pressure to initially ignore her tenure bid. “I have never asked for special treatment,” she wrote. “I did not seek it here. All I asked was to be judged by my credentials and treated fairly and equally.”
Inside the tenure decision
Hannah-Jones is best known for spearheading the 1619 Project, a massive journalistic effort for The New York Times Magazine that examines how slavery and Black Americans shaped the present-day nation. Her introductory essay for the project won her the Pulitzer Prize.
The project has drawn the ire of some conservatives, including state lawmakers that have sought to ban its teaching in colleges and public schools and claim the work is inaccurate. The Times Magazine has clarified one passage in the project’s introductory essay but stood by the result.
UNC-Chapel Hill sought to hire Hannah-Jones as its Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Reporting, a position that has been tenured since the 1980s. Instead, she accepted a tenured position at Howard, where she will train aspiring journalists.
After a drawn-out battle to receive tenure at UNC-Chapel Hill, Hannah-Jones accepted the new position.
Conservative groups with connections to the University of North Carolina System’s governing board raged against her appointment because they objected to her work on the 1619 Project, NC Policy Watch reported. That criticism reportedly led Chapel Hill’s board members to ignore her tenure recommendation, despite faculty members’ strong support for her appointment.
Instead, the school offered Hannah-Jones a five-year contract. She said she initially accepted the agreement because she did want to battle UNC-Chapel Hill or bring controversy to the school. Students and instructors were angered by the decision, with some voicing concerns that it would make it harder for the university to recruit faculty of color. After the ordeal erupted into a national scandal, UNC-Chapel Hill’s trustees granted her tenure in a 9-4 vote.
Hannah-Jones explained why she declined the tenure offer in an interview with CBS’ Gayle King on Tuesday. “Look what it took to get tenure,” she said. “To only have that vote occur on the last possible day, at the last possible moment, after the threat of legal action, after weeks of protests, after it became a national scandal — it’s just not something that I want anymore.”
