That said she should be at NC A&T or NCCU or some other hbcu anyway.

https://19thnews.org/2021/05/unc-wont-offer-tenure-to-nikole-hannah-jones-after-wave-of-conservative-criticism/


UNC won’t offer tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones after wave of conservative criticism


Mariel Padilla
General Assignment Reporter

Published
May 19, 2021

Despite approval from faculty and the tenure committee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist will be the first Knight Chair professor at the university to be denied tenure by the board of trustees.


Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and MacArthur Fellow, was set to teach in a position that has traditionally come with the expectation of tenure at her alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Hussman School of Media and Journalism. But after pushback from conservatives, the board of trustees denied her tenure despite approval from faculty and the tenure committee, offering a five-year teaching contract instead.

The university had announced in April that Hannah-Jones, who received her master’s degree there in 2003, would become the newest Knight Chair — a professorship endowed by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation — that has historically been a tenured position at the university. Hannah-Jones sparked ire from conservative leaders, including former President Donald Trump, after she won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary for the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which was published in 2019 and marked the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first known enslaved Africans.

“My courses will examine the big questions about journalism,” Hannah-Jones said in a statement in April after her hiring was announced. “But they will also bring the practical experiences and advice of someone who covered daily beats, who had to fight to be in a position to do big projects, who can speak to the rigors of academic and accumulated knowledge, but also the practicalities of how you build a career, navigate the industry and deal with setbacks.”

Hannah-Jones declined to comment further when she was reached Wednesday evening.

The university, board of trustees and the legislature have been receiving letters and phone calls in support and opposition since the hire was announced, an unidentified board member, who chose to remain anonymous, told NC Policy Watch.

The board’s ultimate decision to offer Hannah-Jones a five-year contract stunned faculty. More than two dozen faculty members signed a letter that demanded “explanations from the university’s leadership at all levels” and called for her tenure.

“This failure is especially disheartening because it occurred despite the support for Hannah-Jones’s appointment as a full professor with tenure by the Hussman Dean, Hussman faculty, and university,” according to the letter, which was published on Wednesday. “Hannah-Jones’s 20-plus year distinguished record in the field of journalism surpasses expectations for a tenured position.”

Mimi Chapman, the university’s elected faculty chairperson, addressed the board of trustees during a committee meeting on Wednesday and outlined the “exhaustive process” that is undertaken when making tenure recommendations.

First, she said, about four to six letters are solicited from faculty members at other universities who have spent hours and hours reviewing the candidate’s file. Next, every full professor in the given department reviews the candidate’s file. Then, the file goes to a 12-member elected committee that meets monthly where it is reviewed again. At that point, a final recommendation is made to the provost. In total, at least 164 hours of faculty time go into any tenure decision, Chapman said.

Though the board has the authority to deny a tenure recommendation, Chapman asserted that that power should only be used in extreme situations, such as when a professor commits a crime.

“To take this decision is to say to the faculty, intentionally or not, that our expertise, our judgment, our devotion to this institution and indeed our time is not something that you value,” Chapman said. “And to receive this message after a year like we have all had — in which we have gone to extraordinary lengths to respond to student needs, keep our research going, keep our own families healthy and whole — is devastating and demoralizing.”

Hannah-Jones’s 1619 Project — which includes audio, essays, poems, graphics and visual art pieces — reframes the history of the U.S. through the legacy of slavery and its ultimate influence on the country’s democracy. She has maintained extensive ties to the university, delivering the Hussman School’s commencement speech in 2017. The Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, a national organization that she helped found to develop and retain journalists of color, is based at Hussman as well.

Republican lawmakers in several states filed bills that would cut funding to educational institutions that provide lessons derived from the project. Despite strong reservations about the project from some historians, who cite inaccuracies and misleading statements, the Times has defended the project and its aim to “reframe the country’s history” by placing the consequences of slavery at the center of the narrative.

Alberto Ibargüen, president of the Knight Foundation, said there has been a Knight Chair in Journalism at the university since 1984, when it was a professorship to teach advertising. The position has since been converted to teach digital advertising and marketing and now race and investigative reporting. Each change is proposed by the university and agreed to by the foundation, which respects the “academic independence” of partnering schools, he said.

“It is not our place to tell UNC or UNC/Hussman who they should appoint or give tenure to,” Ibargüen said. “It is, however, clear to us that Hannah-Jones is eminently qualified for the appointment and would urge the trustees of the University of North Carolina to reconsider their decision within the timeframe of our agreement.”

Susan King, the dean of the Hussman School of Journalism, said though she is “disappointed that the appointment is without tenure,” the faculty and staff are delighted to welcome Hannah-Jones — “arguably the preeminent journalist of her generation” — to their ranks in the fall.

“I can only imagine how our students will benefit from her wisdom and experience,” King said. “We are happy to bring her back to the university she loves.”

https://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2021/05/20/breaking-unc-chancellor-and-trustees-respond-to-nikole-hannah-jones-tenure-controversy/

Breaking: UNC Chancellor and trustees respond to Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure controversy

By Joe Killian and Kyle Ingram

May 20, 2021


After days of controversy surrounding UNC-Chapel Hill’s failure to appoint acclaimed New York Times Magazine reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones to a tenured professorship, on Thursday the chair of the school’s board of trustees, Richard Stevens, placed responsibility for the decision on the dean of the school’s journalism department.

When Hannah-Jones’s tenure package came to the board’s University Affairs Committee, Stevens said, committee chair Chuck Duckett requested more time to vet Hannah-Jones. Then, he said, the journalism school changed course.

“It is my understanding that Dean Susan King elected to pursue a fixed-term appointment that did not come back to the University Affairs Committee, as none of them ever do,” Stevens said at a virtual press conference on Thursday. “Nikole Hannah-Jones agreed to a fixed-term faculty position. We will be welcoming her to the Hussman School faculty as a Knight Distinguished Chair this fall.”

A Board of Trustees member with direct knowledge of negotiations said board members made it obvious they would not be approving Hannah-Jones for tenure. Conservative opposition to Hannah-Jones’s work had made it untenable. At that point, the trustee said, Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz and Provost Bob Blouin worked to convince Hannah-Jones to take a five year, non-tenured contract as a way to get around the board of trustees. The trustee asked Policy Watch not to identify them so that they could discuss a confidential personnel process.

Stevens’ account contradicts the story King told UNC Hussman faculty in a letter last week, as well as what she told Policy Watch and other news outlets.

“Nikole will join us July 1 as a fixed-term Professor of the Practice, with the option of being reviewed for tenure within five years,” King wrote in a Sunday message to her faculty. “When her case was presented, the Board of Trustees did not act on tenure, and she was offered a five-year fixed-term contract by the university.”

In an interview with Policy Watch earlier this week, King said she was not sure why the board did not move forward with approving tenure for Hannah-Jones, saying the decision was disappointing. Not offering tenure to so prominent and accomplished a journalist in a fraught political climate could hurt the school’s reputation, she said, and have a chilling effect on future recruiting.

King could not be reached immediately after Thursday’s press conference.

When asked what concerns in particular Trustee Duckett had regarding Hannah-Jones, Stevens gave no definitive response.

“As trustees, we take seriously our responsibility for approving tenure,” he said. “We’re talking about a lifetime position here, we do not enter into it lightly. And so it’s not unusual for members of the board, or in particular, the chair of the committee, to have questions for clarification about background, particularly candidates that don’t come from a traditional academic type background.”

Hannah-Jones was hired as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism. The Knight Chair program, sponsored by the Knight Foundation, brings working media professionals into schools across the country. Most, including former Knight Chairs at UNC, do not come from an academic background.

King, the journalism school’s dean, said all past Knight Chairs at UNC had been hired with tenure — making Hannah-Jones’s non-tenure contact a departure from precedent.

“There are over 20 of these around the country,” Guskiewicz said of the Knight Chair positions. “While many of these, maybe perhaps most of them, are in tenured positions, it is our understanding that there are others that are not and so that is an option.”

Student leaders and faculty members at UNC condemned the decision, writing letters of protest to the Board of Trustees to demand that Hannah-Jones be granted tenure.

Guskiewicz did not contradict Stevens’ account of events and struck a balance between addressing the concerns of faculty and respecting the authority of the Board.

“I steadfastly support the academic freedom of our faculty,” Guskiewicz said. “I also respect the role our Board of Trustees play through our model of shared governance. Through the state constitution, the UNC System and the Board of Governors — they have authority over the UNC System.”

Stevens said it was possible that Hannah-Jones could be offered tenure before her 5-year contract ends, depending on her “academic progress.”

*fist pump*

https://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2021/05/21/unc-chapel-hill-student-body-president-demands-board-of-trustee-vote-on-tenure-for-acclaimed-journalist/

By Joe Killian
May 21, 2021

UNC-Chapel Hill student body president demands board of trustees vote on tenure for acclaimed journalist

UNC-Chapel Hill Student Body President Lamar Richards is demanding the school’s board of trustees take a vote on tenure for Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Richards, who was sworn in this week as the student representative on the board, called on fellow board members to hold a vote in a statement late Friday addressed to UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, Provost Bob Blouin and Board chairman Richard Stevens.

“If we truly want transparency, harmony, and success at Carolina, you all will act swiftly to get the matter of her tenure before our Board in a Special called meeting to discuss further the merits of her application and candidacy – in open session (if legally allowed, once receiving her consent),” Richards wrote. “We have a duty to this University to uphold the values we all hold so dear.”

“While our Board was not responsible for rejecting her tenure, Kevin, Bob, and Richard: you three were and continue to be single-handedly responsible for delaying and denying Nikole’s right for her application for tenure to be heard in formal capacity before our Board,” Richards wrote.

As Policy Watch reported this week, the school backed away from offering tenure to Hannah-Jones as its Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism. Previous Knight chairs were tenured positions. But Hannah-Jones — winner of the Peabody, Polk and Pulitzer Prizes as well as a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant — was instead offered a five-year fixed contract for the position.

Though Hannah-Jones had the support of students, faculty and administration at the school, the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees did not act on a recommendation that she be granted tenure.

Sources on the board said the move was prompted by conservative criticism of Hannah-Jones’s work on “The 1619 Project,” a long-form journalism effort that, as the Pulitzer Center put it, “challenges us to reframe U.S. history by marking the year when the first enslaved Africans arrived on Virginia soil as our nation’s foundational date.” Hannah-Jones, who is Black, conceived of the project and was among multiple staff writers, photographers and editors who put it together.

Opposition to the the school’s failure to offer Hannah-Jones tenure has led to national headlines and condemnations from the student government, faculty, Knight Chairs in journalism from across the country, the local NAACP, Carolina Black Caucus, the National Association of Black Journalists and Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

The UNC-CH Faculty Executive Committee announced a special meeting Monday, May 24 at 10:30 a.m. to discuss “recent Board of Trustees actions regarding tenure.”

Read Richards’ full statement below:

Dear Kevin, Bob, and Richard:

I hope this letter finds you well. Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge that today I write to you as both a Trustee of the Board and as Carolina’s Student Body President. I am not sure what happened nor what conversations took place prior to my arrival on the board on Thursday, May 20, 2021. However, I would like to make clear that as a Trustee it is my job to make decisions in the best interest of the entire University – students, faculty, and staff alike. And, as Student Body
President, I remain both invested and dedicated to advocating on behalf of more than 30,000 students.

I write concerning the matter of Nikole Hannah-Jones’ employment with this University. For so long—too long—the students of Carolina have paid the price for a University that has continuously disregarded their trust, pushed aside their passions, and remained entrenched in scandal after scandal.

The time has come to be vigilant, just, and equitable in our leadership and decision-making. I say “our” realizing that I have only just joined the Board, yet I take ownership and responsibility for every decision made here on out. And, most importantly, I take ownership for when I choose to remain silent and allow policy, procedure, and justice to be subsided.

The tenure process here at Carolina, similar to most universities across the country, is led by faculty leaders. They determine who they believe is worthy of having tenure; in this instance, they determined that Nikole was in fact worthy of such a distinction. It was then the responsibility of the Board to hear the application of her tenure, on time, without delay. I have faith in both faculty leaders and the integrity of the process in place to determine tenure.

Therefore, it is not our job to send an individual back to faculty but rather to take action on the matter in a formal vote upon receiving a recommendation for tenure. The model of shared governance is supposed to mean that while there may be disagreements between students and administration or faculty and administration, the policies and procedures put in place to uphold our democratic values should and must never be subverted, especially not by continuing to delay a vote or by taking a matter off of the agenda simply because of dissent or disagreement with the matter.

Allow me to summarize the most valuable insights:

The faculty determined someone was worthy of tenure and submitted this individual to
Dean King.
Dean King made a formal recommendation to Bob for review.
Bob, after conducting ample research and thoroughly reviewing the recommendation, as
with every candidate for tenure, decided to proceed with recommending Nikole’s
candidacy to the Board of Trustees.
After receiving the recommendation, the Board asked for more time to review, but an
agreement was reached between Nikole and the School of Journalism prior to another Board Meeting.
Let us be very clear: it remains an issue of the Board on whether Nikole receives tenure and it is both our mandate and charge to consider that fact in a formal vote. To act as though her coming to Carolina or that the agreement in place is a done deal is a string of excuses embedded in both cowardice and oppression. We have a chance to make clear that Carolina values transparency, shared governance, and ideals of democracy.

As such, I am asking the following:

Bob, I ask that you re-submit Nikole as a candidate for tenure to our Board immediately
as you once initiated in January. If you cannot do this outright, I ask that you do this as an
amendment to her original contract.
Once received, Richard, I am asking that you as the current Chair of the Board take up
this tenure recommendation / contract amendment as an official matter of the Board by
placing it on the agenda at a special called meeting.
Most importantly, I am asking that consent be received from Nikole to discuss both her
personnel record and candidacy for tenure in open session.
Please understand that I do not make this request lightly, but rather to move our University forward in the right direction. The only way to do that is with steadfast, decisive decision-making. In my honest opinion, the Board should have heard the request of her tenure when it was first given to the Board. It is both a disservice and an overreach of the Board to intentionally prolong and neglect to take action on a matter simply because of disagreement or dissent with the individual or topic at hand – that is what our body is for, to vote on all matters placed before us whether hard, easy, difficult, or controversial. Our job is not to intentionally back channel or to subvert the process of an issue coming to a vote.

That being said, Nikole should have never been offered a contract premature to a vote on her tenure. Any agreement made as a result of the belief that the Board would not offer tenure was an agreement made under false perceptions as the matter never officially made it to the agenda and it should have.

If we truly want transparency, harmony, and success at Carolina, you all will act swiftly to get the matter of her tenure before our Board in a Special called meeting to discuss further the merits of her application and candidacy – in open session (if legally allowed, once receiving her consent).

We have a duty to this University to uphold the values we all hold so dear.

While our Board was not responsible for rejecting her tenure, Kevin, Bob, and Richard: you three were and continue to be single-handedly responsible for delaying and denying Nikole’s right for her application for tenure to be heard in formal capacity before our Board.

While what happened before this point remains unclear and confusing, it matters less than what we decide to do regarding Nikole’s future at Carolina. If she should decide not to come to this University as a result of not being considered for tenure, Kevin: I want you to know that you would have lost my faith in your ability to lead this University alongside the
30,000 students I represent. Similarly, Bob, I want you to know that my faith in your ability to lead would have been lost as well. I recognize you have recently announced your stepping down as Provost, but your actions (and inactions), as well as yours, Richard, will follow you into your future endeavors. If this matter remains unresolved, I will support any efforts of the Faculty
Governance Council, Employee Forum, or both houses of the Undergraduate and Graduate & Professional Senate to take up a vote of ‘No Confidence’ in any and every individual responsible.

Yours for Carolina,
Lamar Gregory Richards
Student Body President
Trustee, UNC-CH Board of Trustees

Please note that at no point did I request for tenure to be extended as to not violate Conflict of Interest Guidance and Policy nor to indicate how I might vote; rather, I asked that this matter be taken to a vote officially in the space of the Board of Trustees.

Take additional note that all information contained within this document is a matter of public record, within the confinement of both the Integrity Memo and matters already disclosed to the public via the Press Conference that took place on Thursday, May 20, 2021.

https://bot.unc.edu

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

Rest In Peace, Bad News Brown

>That said she should be at NC A&T or NCCU or some other hbcu
>anyway.

I wish people would stop begging white folks to love them and go where they are wanted and can do the most good

Even without tenure, UNC will give her a lot more money, less obligations (fewer classes, less students, less service), more resources (teaching and research assistants, funding), more flexibility (able to take time off to go back to the NYTimes for a bit).

Those other schools can't afford to provide this stuff.

i hate to think shes selling out for those perks u mentioned. i mean...isnt this whole thing about shining a light on slavery? i hope she gets what she wants...kinda ironic

>Even without tenure, UNC will give her a lot more money, less
>obligations (fewer classes, less students, less service), more
>resources (teaching and research assistants, funding), more
>flexibility (able to take time off to go back to the NYTimes
>for a bit).
>
>Those other schools can't afford to provide this stuff.
>
>

Howard, spelman, etc would offer a package at least competitive with the so called ivies and in many hard to measure ways are better

The problem is the Knight Chair position she's been awarded has *always* come with tenure for said faculty member, and didn't in her case because of strong and openly political opposition to her tenured appointment by powerful conservatives who influenced the (equally powerful and conservative) board of trustees - IN SPITE of her overwhelming support from the institution.

She commented on her twitter that this whole thing is bigger than her, and she's right:

https://twitter.com/nhannahjones/status/1395493858063048721

This was never about money or percent time teaching. It's about race, gender, and academic freedom.

Women being denied tenure for bs is an old story, but she got dealt some Cornel West AND Norm Finkelstein level blockage on top of that. So even if her 5y contract is fat as hell, it's still a slap in the face and clearly payback for 1619. Conservatives HATE her for it.

They would take her in a heartbeat and would give her all the academic freedom she wants. But she won't do it for obvious reasons

money and percent teaching time etc, were primary drivers behind her selecting UNC nor the challenges she encountered getting tenured.

Those are pretty basic/superficial concerns, no? I mean I don't teach, but of the few friends I have who are at least assistant professors (and both Black women, one being Black American) and not adjuncts, the existing or potential community/colleagues at the school as well as the opportunity for impact factored heavily into their decisions to teach where they do. They were also both approached/recruited (and NHJ may have been too, we don't know), rather than applicants, and had attended the schools for one of their degrees similarly to NHJ.

It just seems like you're trying to sanitize the whole thing into a crude dollars and cents assessment, and that doesn't seem like the right read at all tbh. She went there, clearly had pre-existing relationships that facilitated her co-founding the Ida B. Wells Center there, and was then awarded an endowed professor position that should have been a slam-dunk on the question of tenure since it's literally been baked into the position since it's founding. I just want you guys to exercise a tiny bit of imagination and consider that, just maybe, NHJ might have leveraged some of these opportunities intentionally. As in, things were waayy beyond the point of hmm where could I have a few percentage points less teaching time? lol.

OKP always does this weird thing where, in any post about something clearly racist happening to a Black woman/girl, it devolves into exonerating the obvious racist(s) involved and figuring out how to make the racist treatment the Black woman's/girl's fault. I mean so far this year, I've learned (according to okp):

-a racialized woman shouldn't expect to procreate in peace with her husband if she married interracially

-a young black teenager shouldn't fight back if she's getting jumped by multiple young adults at home

-a successful Black woman should (I guess?) avoid opportunities for professional advancement made available to her at an alma mater if she didn't attend an HBCU

shit's depressing

I think they are primary concerns.

My post has nothing to do with how UNC is doing her wrong or even how she ended up at UNC.

It is addressing the spinoff question of why people like her are not going to HBCUs where "they are wanted". They are not going to HBCUs because the working conditions and pay are a lot better elsewhere.

You don't think the circumstances surrounding why/how she ended up at UNC relate to that??

We also have afrogirl_lost in #16 giving extremely damning and relevant testimony about the fact that radical and progressive Black scholars can encounter barriers to advancement at HBCUs as well. So the assumption that she would have had a completely smooth experience with an HBCU isn't correct, according to an academic on okp who's both attended and taught at a number of them.

I mean that's fine if your own considerations would be strictly material in her situation, I'm just saying the material side seems kinda... irrelevant?? Because the 5y contract she was offered is likely better than most master's level profs receive at that institution (if not, given her awards and accolades, that makes this situation worse), but like I said even if it's fat as hell it's still a slap in the face. It's not like any amount of bells and whistles could make up for the fact that the board of trustees blocked her tenure on some racist retaliation shit.

Besides, she's not even "unwanted" at UNC... there was overwhelmingly strong support for her tenure from her department and the broader faculty and student bodies at the institution. Why is it so difficult to imagine that what the BoT did was still racist and wrong despite her (likely) handsome paycheck and strong level of institutional support??

thats all you need to know about his thought process on anything.. lol

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

https://media.giphy.com/media/FHsud3VVwaLgk/giphy.gif

I wish y'all would stop. I'm a two time HBCU grad, but cmon. A lot of our schools are just as disrespectful to faulty as PWI's. This is particularly true if you're radical or progressive. It makes me laugh when people think these spaces are welcoming for these kinda Black scholars. I work in academia. I've taught at three different HBCU's. The students are wonderful, but the work environment and leadership are generally no better than the white schools.

I can see why she would want to go back but umm.. at the same time she had to know these fools would do what they do.

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

there...this whole situation is bugged out. i didnt even know there had been protests...recent article i just pulled up:

https://thecollegepost.com/hannah-jones-denied-tenure-unc/


>I can see why she would want to go back but umm.. at the same
>time she had to know these fools would do what they do.

and nurture the pipeline of young journalists entering the field (Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting). Given that sweat equity, I can see why she ended up gravitating towards it.

Furthermore, the pre-existing working relationships cultivated through that work likely factored heavily into how strongly her fellow faculty at that institution supported her appointment, before the 'cism kicked in.

Apart from all that tho, where she teaches is ultimately her choice anyway.

so I understand why she wanted to go “home”

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

Her Bootcamp is in partnership with North Carolina Central 20 minutes up the street. Her presences will continue to be felt beyond the grounds of UNC Chapel Hill.

I’m spitballing but most of us already know the time when it comes to America and its racism.

but white kids? lmao.. their parents and these schools teach them that Plymouth Rock pie in the sky American History.

just wondering if that could be another reason besides being a UNC alum or doing it for the money. I’m sure Howard, Hampton and a few other HBCU’s can pay top dollar.

but its kinda preaching to the choir to teach 1619 to Black kids.

my suburban HS is another wxample. They are asking about critical race theory and all the white folk are like “what is it?.. we don’t know enough about it to give a yes or no”

which is why PWI’s need this shit more than HBCU’s.

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

brings together advantages from both worlds, leveraging PWI resources to develop and nurture more Black journalists.

Like an HBCU type of community within the PWI.

*shrug* Not a bad use of the relationships/access she cultivated since going there imho

black student community.

I mean I don't know numbers or anything

But I def always got the vibe that it was among the more diverse PWIs

edit: not that that tidbit fits into this narrative...just sayin

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

he had made it thru 98% of the press conference with flying colors...talked about being the first black head coach and what it means to him and the black community etc etc...then took a hard left and crashed and burned at the very end, for no apparent reason smh

but never actually heard it

prolly saw a few white faces tensing up and threw that out there.

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

the unc fans in the office had their heads down

He isn’t who I would pick to follow Roy but I still want Hubert to succeed
However that shit was funny as hell man.

<--- Big Baller World Order

Hubey's mistep aint gonna change that but they were slightly embarrassed that he made such a strange statement out the blue but they were laffin along with me. but truth be told even as a duke fan ive always like Hubert...he was always smiling on the court and seemed like a cool cat with a good demeanor. hes of the unc pedigree with nba experience...i think hes a good pick and wish the bro well.

It may seem that way because our eyes are trained to see us in spaces where we are peppered in, but the Black student population is just at 8%. I've been around that campus my whole life in Upward Bound and as a grad student and was quite surprised how small of a community we were. We band together and congregate in open spaces which I think gave me the illusion that we were more than we are on that campus.


kev

i grew up partying around there and worked on campus a few times...lived in ch hill for years. it always appeared to be a pretty nice sized black population on campus and of course at the clubs and parties...but following up on the info u just provided paints a completely different story...way less than i thought.

>It may seem that way because our eyes are trained to see us
>in spaces where we are peppered in, but the Black student
>population is just at 8%. I've been around that campus my
>whole life in Upward Bound and as a grad student and was quite
>surprised how small of a community we were. We band together
>and congregate in open spaces which I think gave me the
>illusion that we were more than we are on that campus.
>
>
>kev

The degree to which UNC controls higher education (even outside of its domain) in North Carolina should be discussed.

people should take notes and see what's going on.

Yes, I'm mad. Let's move on.

Jays | Cavs | Eagles | Sabres | Tarheels

PSN: Dr_Claw_77 | XBL: Dr Claw 077 | FB: drclaw077 | T: @drclaw77 | http://thepeoplesvault.wordpress.com

Now she needs to decline it lol

https://apnews.com/article/nc-state-wire-nikole-hannah-jones-education-83dc19214604d602bd575cfb2b5dc4ea

_______________________________________

"increased police presence" called in for the vote? whoa

her legal team and that student body president did the damn thing tho

I'm glad the UNC community came together to support her

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

_______________________________________

Someone as brilliant as she is deserves far better

------
“There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” -Albert Camus

.

With all the press, news and opposition, I wonder how the classroom environment would function for her and the students attending.

It seems like she did so much for the institution, yet she still had to beg and raise her fist to get what she deserved.

Anyone have any statements about why she declined? Professional work spaces are so toxic for black leaders.

I have declined working in some areas because I was terrified of the political stress that came along with the job.

I hope Howard is a warm, safe and welcoming space for her.

Rise & Shine
Thrive & Grind
Heart & Mind

<--- Big Baller World Order

too

what a flex

Happy for Hannah-Jones, Coates, Howard, and everyone who is not a racist repub in NC

I'm glad she fought back since it raised awareness about the level of racism there is can be in academia and corruption in state politics

Imagine somebody *not* as well known as her trying to fight back against a similar tenure denial smh

A classy cultured and principled fuck you to UNC.
Hope she flourishes at Howard.

http://perspectivesudans.blogspot.com/
instagram:@3rdworldview
Blessed be the Lord /who believe any mess they read up on the message board

------------------
One Hundred.

now that is how you play chess

****************
TBH the fact that you're even a mod here fits squarely within Jag's narrative of OK-sanctioned aggression, bullying, and toxicity. *shrug*

And not a white school.

Hussman, who was literally born into a newspaper empire, donated $25 million and figured that gave him license to run the school of journalism himself. The program's president and Hannah-Jones, who actually worked hard to get where she is, rightly told him to fuck off, so he went over their heads to the chancellor.

So now he and the board look like assholes. You'd hope they'd learn something from all of this, but I doubt they will.

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all the way up to the Board of Governors just to block her.

Like literally leveraging state legislators to approve funding to make "1619 girl" (?!) go away:

https://twitter.com/greg_doucette/status/1408994961744408580


Which is disgusting if true.

But like you say, her fight exposed a lot.

And for the BoT to take the vote, formally offer her the tenure that shouldn't have been in question to begin with, and then NOT end up with her in the end is prob the best possible outcome of all this.

NHJ and team actually did a huge solid for any future Black and/or progressive professors they try to pull this with.

And I hope that student body president goes into politics, he stood the f up to those ghouls

She really says it all. It's crazy (and SAD af) that she initially internalized/kept quiet about all of this when it first started playing out, as many probably would. It really only grew legs when the local media broke her appt and folks started speaking up abt how fucked up it was she wasn't tenured. She and we are all so much better off from her eventual decision to fight back instead.

Also, she's raised $15 million from the Ford, Knight, and MacArthur foundations for the 'Center for Journalism and Democracy' program she is founding at Howard, which is just $10 million short of her $25 million fundraising goal. Diddy and all these other Black 0.1%ers better chip in immediately, especially the alums. And I like how the fundraising target matches the endowment that Hussman provided to the UNC journalism school. Fuck him.


https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article252593038.html

Nikole Hannah-Jones’s full statement about declining to come to UNC-Chapel Hill

BY KATE MURPHY
JULY 06, 2021

Here is the full statement that Nikole Hannah-Jones released on Tuesday after announcing on “CBS This Morning” that she will not be joining the faculty of UNC-Chapel Hill:

“I have loved the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since I was a child watching Tar Heels basketball on television. Two decades ago, in 2001, I learned that not only had I been accepted into the master’s program at the journalism school at UNC, but that I had received a full-tuition Park Fellowship. I cried from joy. I could not believe how lucky I was to get the chance to learn journalism at a place I had so long revered.

“For the next two years, I practically lived in Carroll Hall, spending more time there than anywhere else, even my apartment. I passed hours and hours in that building, studying, working at the Park Library, soaking in the skills of journalism — as well as its ethics and mandates — from the many generous instructors, sitting in the offices of professors — such as Chuck Stone and Harry Amana — who enthralled me with their stories and guided my steps. I met one of my best friends in the master’s program, and she became my daughter’s godmother.

“UNC took a woman with ambition but no practical journalism training and provided the foundation for all that I would become. And through the years, Carolina has been so good to me; inviting me to give the journalism school’s commencement address in 2017; honoring me with the Young Alumni Award that same year and the Distinguished Alumna Award in 2019; and last year, inducting me into the N.C. Media Hall of Fame.

“I have tried to repay the university by mentoring and supporting students through the organization I co-founded — the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting — and by regularly visiting the campus to give talks and meet with students. And so, a few years ago when Dean Susan King first raised the possibility of my coming to teach at the university, I was deeply honored. As a full-time journalist at The New York Times who had no intention of leaving the profession, I told her I could not consider it.

“But those who know Dean King, know this woman is relentlessly persuasive and never takes her eyes off the long game. Last year, she came to me with the idea of the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Reporting. Our country was undergoing a racial reckoning, and she talked about the moment we are in and how important it was for the upcoming generation of journalists to have the knowledge, training, historical understanding, and depth of reporting to cover the changing country and its challenges. She told me that Carolina was undergoing a racial reckoning of its own, that its leadership was committed to real change, and that she felt I could play an important role in this effort.

“I knew it would be a heavy load to continue my work as an investigative reporter and take on teaching, but I could not dismiss the security and academic freedom of tenure that accompanied the Knight Chair at Carolina and the opportunity to return to serve my alma mater. After giving her offer a lot of thought, the possibility of coming back to Carolina and formalizing the mentoring and teaching I have been doing for years proved too powerful for me to deny. I said yes, and then, like every other person who has been named a Knight Chair at Carolina, I began the rigorous tenure process.

‘OVERWHELMINGLY IN SUPPORT’
“As part of the months-long tenure process, I had to write a teaching statement, a creative statement and a service statement. I had to teach a class while being observed by faculty. Dean King solicited letters to assess my portfolio of work and professional accomplishments from several academic experts in the field of journalism whom I did not personally know. I presented to the journalism faculty. Following these steps, my tenure was put to vote by all the full professors of the journalism school, who were overwhelmingly in support.

“My tenure package was then submitted to the university’s Promotion and Tenure committee, which also overwhelmingly approved my application for tenure. My tenure package was then to be presented for a vote by the Board of Trustees in November so that I could start teaching at the university in January 2021. The day of the Trustees meeting, we waited for word, but heard nothing. The next day, we learned that my tenure application had been pulled but received no explanation as to why. The same thing happened again in January. Both the university’s Chancellor and its Provost refused to fully explain why my tenure package had failed twice to come to a vote or exactly what transpired. The rest of this story has been well documented in the press.

“Being asked to return to teach at Carolina had felt like a homecoming; it felt like another way to give back to the institution that had given so much to me. And now I was being told that the Board of Trustees would not vote on my tenure and that the only way for me to come teach in the fall would be for me to sign a five-year contract under which I could be considered for tenure at a later, unspecified date. By that time, I had invested months in the process. I had secured an apartment in North Carolina so that I would be ready to teach that January. My editors at The New York Times had already supplied quotes for the press release of the big announcement.

“I did not want to face the humiliation of letting everyone know that I would be the first Knight Chair at the university to be denied tenure. I did not want to wage a fight with my alma mater or bring to the school and to my future colleagues the political firestorm that has dogged me since The 1619 Project published. So, crushed, I signed the five-year contract in February, and I did not say a word about it publicly.

“But some of those who had lobbied against me were not satisfied to simply ensure I did not receive tenure. When the announcement of my hire as the Knight Chair came out at the end of April, writers from a North Carolina conservative think tank called the James G. Martin Center railed against the university for subverting the board’s tenure denial and hiring me anyway. The think tank had formerly been named after Art Pope, an influential conservative activist who now serves on the UNC Board of Governors, who had helped birth the center. The article questioned how I had been hired without the Board of Trustees approval, and its writer argued that, because the university hired me anyway after the board stymied my tenure, the Board of Governors “should amend system policies to require every faculty hire to be vetted by each school’s board of trustees.” And yet, when that article was published, it had not been made public that I had been hired without the board approving my tenure or my hire. Even faculty at the journalism school were not aware that I had not been considered for tenure and would not learn this until some days later.

“Nine days after the James G. Martin Center published this piece, reporter Joe Killian at N.C. Policy Watch broke the story that, because of political interference and pressure by conservatives, I had been denied consideration for tenure and instead offered a five-year contract. The story about the denial of consideration went viral, and I was dragged into the very thing that I had tried to avoid as the actions of the Board of Trustees became a national scandal.

‘TREATED SO SHABBILY BY MY ALMA MATER’
“These last few weeks have been very dark. To be treated so shabbily by my alma mater, by a university that has given me so much and which I only sought to give back to, has been deeply painful.

“The only bright light has been all of the people who spoke up and fought back against the dangerous attack on academic freedom that sought to punish me for the nature of my work, attacks that Black and marginalized faculty face all across the country.

Dean Susan King who, in a vacuum of leadership, has exhibited courage, integrity, honesty, and a refusal to be bullied even if it cost her. This is why I wanted to come work under her leadership.
My colleagues across the country who spoke up with vigor and outrage and to whom I am so very grateful.
The faculty at the School of Journalism and Media and across campus who spoke truth to power and stood up not just for me, but for the academic integrity of North Carolina’s flagship university.
The Carolina alumni who sent letters, made calls, and applied public pressure to the Board of Trustees to maintain the integrity of the process and the university.
The advocates, including members of the state legislature and the local NAACP branches.
All the universities that reached out to offer me a home, where, as one dean of journalism put it, I would be given “tenure and”
My amazing legal team: the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., Levy Ratner PC and Ferguson, Chambers and Sumpter, P.A., for your guidance and for providing me with the best representation in the country.
The New York Times, where I will continue to work as a magazine staff writer.
And most of all, the students at Carolina, who protested and fought to hold the Board of Trustees accountable, even as you were treated with disrespect by the institution charged with serving you.
“I cannot adequately express my gratitude to you all. But I will not be joining the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a professor.

“I cannot imagine working at and advancing a school named for a man who lobbied against me, who used his wealth to influence the hires and ideology of the journalism school, who ignored my 20 years of journalism experience, all of my credentials, all of my work, because he believed that a project that centered Black Americans equaled the denigration of white Americans. Nor can I work at an institution whose leadership permitted this conduct and has done nothing to disavow it.

“How could I believe I’d be able to exert academic freedom with the school’s largest donor so willing to disparage me publicly and attempt to pull the strings behind the scenes? Why would I want to teach at a university whose top leadership chose to remain silent, to refuse transparency, to fail to publicly advocate that I be treated like every other Knight Chair before me? Or for a university overseen by a board that would so callously put politics over what is best for the university that we all love? These times demand courage, and those who have held the most power in this situation have exhibited the least of it.

“The Board of Trustees wanted to send a message to me and others like me, and it did. I always tell college students and journalists who are worried that they will face discrimination, who fear that they will be judged not by their work but for who they are or what they choose to write about, that they can only worry about that which is in their own control: their own excellence. I tell them all they can do is work as hard as possible to make themselves undeniable. And yet, we have all seen that you can do everything to make yourself undeniable, and those in power can change the rules and attempt to deny you anyway.

“Since the second grade when I began being bused into white schools, I have been fighting against people who did not think a Black girl like me belonged, people who tried to control what I did, how I spoke, how I looked, the work I produced.

“I have never asked for special treatment. I did not seek it here. All I asked was to be judged by my credentials and treated fairly and equally.

‘I WORKED MY WAY UP’
“I do not come from a wealthy and connected family. I did not arrive at Carolina with the understanding that no matter how I performed, I would have a job and prominent position guaranteed. My dad drove a bus and my mom was a probation officer. I got into Carolina on my own merits. I scraped to secure internships at small papers like High Point Enterprise. I got my first job covering schools for the Chapel Hill News. At age 27, when a certain wealthy donor was inheriting the publishing gig from his family paper, I was interning at The News & Observer while working a second job as a mattress salesperson to make ends meet.

“I worked my way up from newspaper to newspaper, and have worked as a journalist for 20 years, traveling from North Carolina to Oregon to New York City before landing at The New York Times. In 2016, I co-founded a journalist organization to help others succeed in the field of investigative reporting. That organization, the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, is housed at the University of North Carolina. I did not have $25 million to give, but I brought what resources I had, not to force my beliefs about journalism on anyone, but to help train eager journalists in the tools of investigative reporting and the skills necessary to cover a deeply divided and unequal multiracial democracy.

“Every Knight Chair at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since the 1980s has entered that position as a full professor with tenure. And yet, the vote on my tenure had to be forced by weeks of protests, scathing letters of reprimand, the threat of legal action and my refusal to start July 1 without it. Even then, the Board of Trustees had to be led to this vote by its youngest member, Lamar Richards, the student body president, who publicly demanded the special meeting. The board then chose to wait to vote until the last possible day at the last possible moment.

“If I had any doubts about whether I should come to UNC or not, watching the proceedings affirmed my decision.

“I watched as student protesters, who for weeks had been expressing their pain and hurt, were forced to wait for more than 20 minutes before they were let into the meeting room. I watched as not a single official in the room bothered to explain that the meeting they had advertised as a special meeting that would be livestreamed would in fact be held in closed session because that is the rule. I watched as their response to the shock, hurt and outrage of students, who thought they’d come to a public hearing, was to remain silent when any adult in the room could have calmly explained what was happening.

“I watched as the Chancellor and other officials looked down and did nothing as law enforcement shoved, pushed, and pummeled the students they are supposed to serve. I watched as student protesters were forced outside in the heat to wait for nearly two hours as the board argued over my tenure. And then I watched as one of the trustees came out and falsely claimed that June 28 had been the first time the board had ever had the opportunity to review my application, and that it was the board that had been treated unfairly in this situation.

‘UNIVERSITY’S LEADERSHIP CONTINUES TO BE DISHONEST’
“To this day, no one has ever explained to me why my vote did not occur in November or January, and no one has requested the additional information that a member of the Board of Trustees claimed he was seeking when they refused to take up my tenure. The university’s leadership continues to be dishonest about what happened and patently refuses to acknowledge the truth, to offer any explanation, to own what they did and what they tried to do. Once again, when leadership had the opportunity to stand up, it did not.

“At some point when you have proven yourself and fought your way into institutions that were not built for you, when you’ve proven you can compete and excel at the highest level, you have to decide that you are done forcing yourself in.

“I fought this battle because I know that all across this country Black faculty, and faculty from other marginalized groups, are having their opportunities stifled, and that if political appointees could successfully stop my tenure, then they would only be emboldened to do it to others who do not have my platform. I had to stand up. And, I won the battle for tenure.

“But I also get to decide what battles I continue to fight. And I have decided that instead of fighting to prove I belong at an institution that until 1955 prohibited Black Americans from attending, I am instead going to work in the legacy of a university not built by the enslaved but for those who once were. For too long, Black Americans have been taught that success is defined by gaining entry to and succeeding in historically white institutions. I have done that, and now I am honored and grateful to join the long legacy of Black Americans who have defined success by working to build up their own.

“I will be taking a position as the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Reporting at Howard University, founded in 1867 to serve the formerly enslaved and their descendants. There, I will be creating a new initiative aimed at training aspiring journalists to cover the crisis of our democracy and bolstering journalism programs at historically Black colleges and universities across the country. I have already helped secure $15 million for this effort, called the Center for Journalism and Democracy, with the generous grants from the Ford, Knight, and MacArthur foundations, and have set a goal of raising $25 million. In the storied tradition of the Black press, the Center for Journalism and Democracy will help produce journalists capable of accurately and urgently covering the perilous challenges of our democracy with a clarity, skepticism, rigor, and historical dexterity that is too often missing from today’s journalism.

“Historically Black colleges and universities have long punched above their weight, producing a disproportionate number of Black professionals while working with disproportionately low resources. It is my great honor to help usher to this storied institution these significant resources that will help support the illustrious, hardworking, and innovative faculty at the Cathy Hughes School of Communications and the brilliant students it draws. Thank you, President Wayne Frederick and Dean Gracie Lawson-Borders, for always treating me with dignity and respect, and for offering me a home where I can do my work unimpeded.

“Many people, all with the best of intentions, have said that if I walk away from UNC, I will have let those who opposed me win. But I do not want to win someone else’s game. It is not my job to heal this university, to force the reforms necessary to ensure the Board of Trustees reflects the actual population of the school and the state, or to ensure that the university leadership lives up to the promises it made to reckon with its legacy of racism and injustice.

“For too long, powerful people have expected the people they have mistreated and marginalized to sacrifice themselves to make things whole. The burden of working for racial justice is laid on the very people bearing the brunt of the injustice, and not the powerful people who maintain it. I say to you: I refuse.

‘UNIVERSITY HAS, BEGRUDGINGLY, DONE THE ABSOLUTE MINIMUM’
“In the case of my tenure, the university has, begrudgingly, done the absolute minimum. In a split vote, it did what it was supposed to have done 7 months ago and, in doing so, many believe the university has resolved the issue. It has not.

“If the leaders at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sincerely wish to redeem themselves, to live up to the university’s status as the people’s university, I would humbly suggest they do the following, at a minimum:

Apologize publicly and privately to the student protesters treated so disrespectfully at the Board of Trustees meeting last week, and then dedicate themselves to addressing the demands issued by the Black Student Movement.
Agree to address the demands issued by the Carolina Black Caucus more than two years ago. To be effective, these efforts must include an actual commitment, with targets, for recruiting, supporting, and retaining Black faculty. While I provided an easy case for many to rally around, had I come, I would have been just the second tenured Black woman professor in the 70-year history of the UNC journalism school, and I would have been its first and only Black woman full professor. Black women account for just 1.9 percent of tenured faculty at UNC, and Black professors together account for just 5 percent in a state that is 22 percent Black and at a university where the student body is 11 percent Black. These issues predated my tenure and cannot be laid at the foot of a politically appointed board, since the tenure hopes of most Black professors are quashed before they even reach the Board of Trustees.
Advocate to change the role that the Board of Trustees and the Board of Governors have over faculty governance and commit to respecting faculty governance and academic freedom at this institution. This requires a change to the way the boards are appointed so that they actually reflect the demographics of the state and the student body, rather than the whims of political power.
Provide transparency around the tenure debacle that led us here. To date, neither myself, Dean King, my legal counsel, nor the public, have ever been told directly by the university why my tenure was not voted on in November, in January, or at any time before the forced vote in June. Public records requests by both journalists and residents have gone unfulfilled. This is unacceptable for a public university. University officials cannot rebuild trust without first providing truth and transparency in a public accounting of what went wrong and why.
“To Dean King, you are a champion for women journalists, a trailblazer in your own right. We did not ask for this fight, but we were determined to see it to victory. It would have been an honor to work for you.

“To the UNC faculty, especially the consummate professionals in the journalism school, I so looked forward to being your colleague and to learning from you and working with you. You welcomed me from the start. Our students are lucky to learn from you each day, and the university is lucky to have you.

“To the students, I am deeply sorry that I will not have the privilege of teaching you and learning from you. You are brave and full of grace, and I am so very proud of you all. My commitment to you has not wavered, I just will continue to do it as I have in the past, as an alum of the school and not faculty. I hope that you will consider Howard or another HBCU if you ever seek a new educational home, but whatever you do, I know you will continue to fight for justice.

“I will always be a Tar Heel. I remain grateful for all the university has given me and am committed to a lifetime of paying it forward. And I am so excited to now call myself a Bison as well and join the Howard family of which I have long desired to belong.”