After months of drama and unintended scandal, Nikole Hannah-Jones has declined the University of North Carolina’s tenure offer and has accepted a position with Howard University.
What We Know:
- Months after refusing to grant Pulitzer-prize winning author Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure, the trustee board for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill voted Wednesday afternoon to grant the 1619 Project developer. UNC’s board chairman, Richard Stevens stated after the special three-hour trustee session, “We welcome Nikole Hannah-Jones back to campus. Our university is not a place to cancel people. Our university is better than that. Our nation is better than that.’ He continued, “We embrace and endorse academic freedom and vigorous debate and constructive disagreement.”
“…to be denied and to only have that vote on the last possible day at the last possible moment, after threat of legal action, after weeks of protest, after it became a national scandal – it’s just not something that I want anymore.”
- Hannah-Jones told Gayle King that it was embarrassing to receive the offer after all of the drama. While she exclaimed much love for her alma mater, she says the sought position had always been offered with tenure.
JUST IN: Award-winning journalist @nhannahjones reveals on @CBSThisMorning she has declined the University of North Carolina’s offer for tenure and will be the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Reporting at @HowardU. pic.twitter.com/w9j0gVe0cd
— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) July 6, 2021
- Much of the political fallout that surrounded Hannah-Jones has been around the 1619 Project. The 1619 Project project historically examines how the slavery of Black people molded the American political, social, and economic institutions we see today. Published in August 2019, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved group of Black people arriving in Virginia, it emphasizes racial inequities as the foundation of American history. It gives educators a curriculum that authentically encompasses Black history into American history. Hannah-Jones was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for the project.
This is a Breaking News story. This story will be updated as additional information is available.
