Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones has turned down a tenured position at the University of North Carolina after the school went back and forth on a decision to give Hannah-Jones tenure.
After protests from staff and students to give Hannah-Jones tenure, UNC agreed to give her a teaching position with tenure. Hannah-Jones rejected the position from UNC altogether, and instead accepted a position at Howard University
Hannah-Jones stated that being a black woman was part of the reason why she wasn’t offered tenure at UNC
Author of the 1619 project and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones has turned down a teaching position with tenure from the University of North Carolina (UNC) and will be teaching at Howard University. Hannah-Jones was denied tenure by UNC, which lead to protests by students and staff. UNC then reversed their decision to give Hannah-Jones the teaching position with tenure, which she has now rejected and has now announced that she will be a teaching at Howard University instead.
Hannah-Jones states that she believes UNC didn’t offer her the teaching position with tenure because she is a black woman.
The announcement of Hannah-Jones new position at Howard University came this morning on Gayle King’s “CBS This Morning.” Along with her teaching position that includes tenure, Hannah-Jones will also start the “Center for Journalism and Democracy” which will teach investigative journalism to students.
Hannah-Jones was initially given a teaching position at UNC but was denied tenure by the UNC system’s board of trustees. The University later offered to include tenure with her teaching position after protests from students and staff.
Hannah-Jones stated on CBS that she wasn’t offered tenure because of her political views along with her race and gender.
“It’s pretty clear my tenure was not taken up because of political opposition because of discriminatory views against my viewpoint and I believe my race and gender.”
A statement Hannah-Jones wrote that was released after the interview with Gayle King stated that she loves UNC, but the University was being dishonest.
“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.”
The statement also included more information about the “Center for Journalism and Democracy” that Hannah-Jones will start at Howard University.
“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 challenges of our democracy with clarity, skepticism, rigor, and historical dexterity that is too often missing from today’s journalism.”
Nikole Hannah-Jones is author of the controversial “1619 Project” which suggests that July 4th 1776 isn’t when the United States of America was founded, but rather in 1619 when the first ship that carried slaves came to America.
Hannah-Jones states in the project that, “nearly everything that has made America exceptional grew out of slavery.”
Howard University has also hired author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, who has written extensively about slavery reparations and recently compared psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson to the Red Skull, the villain in Captain America.
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