UPDATE 7/2/21 7:00 AM: After a controversy over whether Nikole Hannah–Jones should be granted tenure as a full professor at the University of North Carolina, the 1619 Project author is not sure she will end up taking the job. From WRAL-TV in Raleigh:
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones was supposed to begin her new job at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Thursday, but it’s unclear when – or even if – she will arrive on campus after a protracted fight over tenure that battered the university’s reputation…
The board finally voted 9-4 on Wednesday to grant her tenure.
“These last weeks have been very challenging and difficult, and I need to take some time to process all that has occurred and determine what is the best way forward,” she said in a statement following the vote…
[UNC] professors WRAL News talked with on Thursday said they have no idea whether Hannah-Jones will eventually teach there after the tenure fight.
“I hope she does come. We’d love to have her in the department,” Associate Professor Deen Freelon said. “The decision is ultimately hers, and I would not blame her at all if she decided to go elsewhere or not to do academia at all.”
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: The University of North Carolina agreed to grant tenure to Nikole Hannah–Jones, founder of the New York Times’s widely discredited 1619 Project, following weeks of intense backlash from leftists.
The school’s board of trustees voted 9-4 on Thursday to grant Hannah–Jones a tenured position at UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media after initially denying her tenure request due to her lack of academic experience and credentials.
Hannah–Jones had protested the rejection, arguing she would not stay on with the school unless she was guaranteed a long-term contract.
The board’s reevaluation and its decision to grant Hannah–Jones tenure proved UNC “is not a place to cancel people or ideas. Neither is it a place for judging people and calling them names, like woke or racist,” claimed board vice chairman Gene Davis Jr.
“In this moment at our university, in our state, and in our nation, we need more debate, not less,” he added. “We need more open inquiry, not less. We need more viewpoint diversity, not less. We need to listen to each other and not cancel each other or call each other names. If not us, who?”
Conservatives have frequently criticized left-wing academic and media institutions, however, for taking a one-sided approach to the free expression of ideas.
Many of the ideas linked to contemporary cancel-culture have been supported by quasi-Marxist claims such as Critical Race Theory that seek to undermine traditional American values and to tar all dissent as being ‘systemically racist.’
Nonetheless, Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said the vote was an “important” moment for the school and claimed Hannah-Jones offered “great value” to the university.
“This is an important day for our campus. We respect your voices and your passion,” he said during the vote.
“We still have a lot more work ahead, and we are committed to working to build our community together to ensure that all voices are heard, and people know they belong,” he continued. “Ultimately, I am glad that the matter of tenure for Nikole Hannah–Jones has been resolved.”
Hannah–Jones’s tenure application was originally dropped because she lacked a “traditional academic-type background.” She then claimed the university was discriminating against her because of her political beliefs.
