CHAPEL HILL (July 9, 2021) – UNC Chapel Hill and its lofty nationwide reputation took a hit in the university’s failed attempt to hire Nikole Hannah-Jones.
And the shame of it is it was self-inflicted.
The UNC-CH Board of Trustees belatedly voted last week to grant tenure to Hannah-Jones as a Knight Chair in UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Then Pulitzer Prize winner Hannah-Jones announced to CBS’ Gayle King Tuesday that she would not teach at Chapel Hill and will instead teach at Howard University.
Hannah-Jones and fellow journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates will bring $20 million from donors – including the Ford and MacArthur foundations – to establish a Center for Journalism and Democracy at historically Black Howard.1
The Knight Chairs are designed to bring practicing professional journalists to the classroom to help aspiring young journalists. They do not have conventional academic backgrounds, but previous Knight Chairs at UNC – both White – were granted tenure.
Yet when Hannah-Jones’ nomination for tenure was forwarded to a committee of the Board of Trustees by the provost’s office, one board member said he had unspecified “questions.” *
It’s easy to infer that board members and the journalism school’s biggest donor had political, ideological or racist objections to The 1619 Project, a series Hannah-Jones led at The New York Times Magazine that suggested slavery played a formative role in U.S. history.
THE END RESULT is that the university has been hurt. Its reputation as a great public institution that is balanced and inclusive has been damaged. Was it a failure of governance? A failure of leadership? Or both?
A failure of governance?
For starters, UNC governing boards simply do not reflect the gender, racial, geographic or partisan makeup of the state or the student body – it’s just math.2
In a post last week, Andrew Perrin – a respected professor who recently left UNC for Johns Hopkins – underscored how the campus Board of Trustees, the system’s Board of Governors, the UNC System Office and the NC General Assembly pose “a huge oversight structure.”
“All this means that UNC-Chapel Hill, one of the world’s great intellectual institutions and a beacon of top-quality public higher education, is governed by four boards or bodies whose attitudes toward the university’s core missions range from skeptical or overly politicized on their best days to outright hostile on their worst. In my view, that is by far the most important impediment to UNC’s long-term health. The university’s leadership, from Chancellor (Kevin) Guskiewicz down, is caught in an impossible bind between these external powers and the increasingly discouraged but dedicated faculty, staff, and students,” Perrin wrote.3
A failure of leadership?
After two months of nationwide criticism over the Board of Trustees’ inaction on tenure for Hannah-Jones, Vice Chair Gene Davis chaired the meeting last week where the board voted 9-4 to grant Hannah-Jones tenure. He then read a statement.
“We embrace and endorse academic freedom, open and rigorous debate, scholarly inquiry and constructive disagreement – all of which are grounded in the virtue of listening to each other,” Davis wrote.
“We have built one of the world’s leading public research universities on the cornerstones of collaboration and collegiality. Light and liberty, academic freedom – these bedrock principles allow our elite faculty to address the world’s most pressing problems. Not only do we support academic freedom, but we also believe that a university – that our university – is the very place where the most important issues of our time should be debated.”4
If these so-called “bedrock” principles are so fundamental to UNC Chapel Hill’s identity, then why did it take at least five months to bring them to bear on the Nikole Hannah-Jones case?
All of the above?
Fingers can be pointed in multiple directions over this sorry spectacle. Some will no doubt see failures of both governance and leadership – unnecessary politicization of a common academic procedure, unnecessary silence, unnecessary delays.
As we pointed out in an earlier series on good governance, it’s best for governing boards to have “noses in, fingers out.”
UNC – where female Black faculty are already underrepresented – has already seen a celebrated Black female chemist who’d been recruited for two years remove herself from consideration over Hannah-Jones’ treatment.5
Departures of other faculty and staff – or worse, application links that never get clicked – should hardly be a surprise. As a result, students – remember them? – will likely see less diversity among their instructors.
But Hannah-Jones said that even though she loves UNC, she made a difficult decision not to come here.
“It’s not my job to heal the University of North Carolina,” she said. “That’s the job of the people in power who created the situation in the first place.”6
* The original version of this post included an inaccurate timeline for some events. The post has now been updated to remove that information. We regret the inaccuracy.
1 http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2021/07/06/nikole-hannah-jones-declines-unc-tenure-offer-heads-to-howard-university/; https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nikole-hannah-jones-unc-tenure-professorship-howard-university/.
2 https://hew.aveltsagency.com/2021/02/unc-system-governance-look-like-north-carolina/; https://www.wral.com/imminent-nikole-hannah-jones-decision-brings-unc-board-s-diversity-issues-to-light/19749069/.
3 https://scatter.wordpress.com/2021/07/03/on-leaving-unc/?fbclid=IwAR3OaFDbs4n91uG3V9-mp3Zr26cPHZZLpqFUETq4eNvM2q9iB4Mm9_7UbP8.
4 https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article252537673.html.
5 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article251867998.html.
6 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nikole-hannah-jones-unc-tenure-professorship-howard-university/.
R. Michael Childs says
Balderdash.
James L. Hughes says
As a Carolina grad, this is as low as it gets. How can we be released from the chains that bind us? We cannot exist as a world class institution while serving under the misguided opinions of ideologues.
So, what can we do? North Carolina students/faculty/staff/alums get out there and be active politically. Spread the word, make family and friends angry. We have to change this by working locally and statewide. We need to quit whining and get to work to remove those folks who do not understand the university’s mission or are downright hostile to academic exploration. Jim Hughes UNC-CH “68
Donald Mathews says
As a former faculty member and assistant dean of academic affairs, I have been dispirited, ashamed, angered, and dismayed. I once taught seminars on lynching to undergraduates, but I suspect the current Board of Trust would have tried to prevent me from doing so according to their obvious distaste for the truth. They are offended by those who expose the worst of our past, preferring to believe that historians and journalists should be public relations hacks instead of scholars. Shame on them.
Sherry Fontaine says
Unfortunately, the people in power are probably quite satisfied with this outcome. Chapel Hill has always been scorned by the conservatives in our state and they want to keep our education system from progressing. These people do not like change. They want things to stay the same. UNC has always been the beacon for open minds and progressive movement, but I have witnessed the shift from inside as a student (‘87 Journalism) until now as a local. I remember the difficulties establishing and building Sonya Haynes Stone Center for Black History and Culture.
UNC’s light has dimmed, and is at risk of being smothered. The people in power do not represent the student body. Is there potential to revive the fading progressive spirit? That depends on whether the talented students are there for a bigger paycheck or to make a difference.
Hank Ervin says
I disagree with your conclusions. The 1619 project is a distortion. It uses an amalgamtion of historical facts to built a encompassing historical narrative based primarily on racial identification of outcomes. It is a weak narrative attractive to the holders of a theory of racial division and guilt. It is a limited narrative and does not provide a valid basis for a historical compendium of the American experience.
LN says
Let’s cut to the chase. Phil Berger controls the University System BOG and the individual campus BOTs 100%. Not 90%. Not 95%. 100%. And Phil Berger is fundamentally opposed to the concept of public education, from kindergarten to doctoral programs. He only wants it to exist at all to warehouse and underfund education for “those people”, while he lavishly funds private segregated education for his chosen people. So , with these facts clearly understood, we must understand that this entire fiasco was no “failure”. Berger could not be more satisfied. Anything he can do to inflict harm to public education, and especially to UNC-CH, is an unqualified win. The way this one played out, angering NHJ’s supporters by delaying tenure, and then angering his QANON base by belatedly approving tenure, was a double win. He demoralizes educators across the board while enflaming hatred among his supporters. So, in sum, given that Phil Berger is the Chairman of the Board of the entire State of North Carolina, how can you characterize an outcome that is entirely to his satisfaction a “failure”?
Jay Currin says
Ms Jones returned to UNC and found an excellent university….again. The diversity at the Chapel Hill campus
Is appreciated by most students. Perhaps Ms. Jones realized she needed to bring more diversity to Howard University, which gets funding because it proudly declares its black roots We should watch for change under her leadership.
Mary says
This is reminiscent of Birmingham, AL’s 2020 fiasco with recognition of native Angela Davis (which ultimately happened after a board relented and Ms. Davis agreed to accept). “We are doomed to repeat it?”
KENT H MCGILL says
Walter Hussman’s malign influence on the Board of Governors is abhorrent. There is NO EXCUSE for his racist, hate-filled opposition to Hannah-Jones because of the 1619 Project nor for the Board Members & officials who succumbed his bullying! You all just wrecked UNC’s reputation & quality of faculty for years to come. Power corrupts & absolute power corrupts ABSOLUTELY, as Disraeli observed. A pox on all you Board Members & officials who succumbed. YOU ALL are all unworthy to serve!
C says
Our University did suffer a “self-inflicted wound” in connection with the faculty appointment of Nikole Hannah-Jones and the trustees’ subsequent delay in granting her tenure. Ms. H-J’s 1619 Project – and, in the process, Ms. H-J’s scholarship, integrity, judgment and objectivity – were harshly criticized by a broad array of esteemed scholars of America’s Revolution. In the words of highly-respected Gordon Wood, for example, “It [the 1619 Project] is so wrong in so many ways…None of the leading scholars of the whole period from the Revolution to the Civil War, as far as I know, have been consulted…When the Declaration [of Independence] says that all men are created equal, that is no myth. It is the most powerful statement ever made in our history, and it lies behind almost everything we Americans believe in and attempt to do.” In short, Ms. H-J’s 1619 arguments were so outlandish that she should never have been considered for appointment, much less tenure, even by the J-School (by any other name).
The self-inflicted wound was from a shot in the University foot by its academic community that has drifted over the years so far to the Progressive end of the spectrum that it appears out of touch not only with huge segments of North Carolina society but with reason, common sense, balance, and responsibility. This wound will easily heal if quietly given time to do so. Unfortunately, commentaries in Higher Ed Works and elsewhere, much of it extreme, harsh, narrow and near-hysterical, make clear that the faculty and administration of our University, and politicians, interest groups and journalists who support the likes of Ms. H-J and her radical notions (that is, many Democrats and most journalists), will seize their own Hannah-Jones furor to diligently impose their own, wrong solution to their own contrived problem. The gist of the solution will be “Shut up and sit down, citizens, trustees and elected politicians who disagree with the University’s faculty and cowed administration on anything and leave everything to their ever-more-monolithic Progressive point of view.” That solution will be pursued, often misleadingly, behind two popular banners: (1) Academic Freedom to speak one’s mind after appointment (a cause that is worthy if a wide variety of viewpoints are represented, which is not the case), and (2) Diversity, carried, selectively, by and in support of a faculty whose members are grossly disproportionate (more than 90% left/Democratic) with our population in political philosophy and allegiance and an administration that admits a student body that is grossly disproportionate with the population in gender/sex (62% female).
As an aside, an ungrateful (to the J-School and University administration) Ms. Hannah-Jones salted the University’s self-inflicted foot wound when she opportunistically seized the tenure delay as a cause and occasion to garner more pay and a higher-sounding role for herself elsewhere than Carolina. As another aside, it is possible that the faculty is not as monolithic as it allows itself to appear via pronouncements of its Chair and votes by a typically small proportion of its members.
Too many of our friends and neighbors who are solid Tar Heels, whose children and grandchildren qualify academically for Carolina, are choosing to send them elsewhere because they no longer trust Carolina’s administration and faculty. Sadly enough, as the ill-advised appointment of Ms. Hannah-Jones and the over-the-top defense of it demonstrate, they have reason to be cautious.
Alice Rainey says
As a UNC Alum(‘74,’78), I am truly shocked by this lengthy display of very obvious partiality in delaying tenure approval for Hannah-Jones. So sad that this insult to such a gifted and erudite journalist will result in future students of UNC’s excellent School of Journalism being deprived of her insights and perspective in the classroom. It is a sad sad time indeed when political leanings of the Board of Governors is allowed to influence their judgements on academic decisions at our flagship university. This failure to act—too little, much too late—damages UNC’s academic integrity and free speech for a generation of not just North Carolinians, but all Americans. Embarrassingly, this takes UNC back to the Jim Crow Era in a time when other institutions are making strides to correct past inequities.
C says
The “obvious partiality” some of the trustees and Walter Hussmann and countless North Carolinians showed regarding Ms. Hannah-Jones’ appointment was a partiality for able scholarship, objectivity and integrity in persons appointed to the Carolina faculty. Ms. Hannah-Jones, unfortunately, fails on all those points. Ms. Rainey, who appears unaware of Ms .Hannah-Jones’ numerous failings, as well as her many bizarre comments in various forums, would do well to Google the take of Gordon Wood and the many other esteemed, knowledgeable historians who harshly panned her 1619 Project and her ever-shifting, backfilling defense of it. The shallowness of Ms. Rainey’s comments – and the problem our University is up against – is exemplified in the ludicrous claim that “this takes UNC back to the Jim Crow Era,” when it does nothing remotely close to the sort. That some people are alert to, and dislike, nutty, inflammatory premises (not “scholarship”) that bear no truth in them is a good sign, not evidence of racism. The appointment was a “celebrity” hire, aimed at elevating the Hussmann school and its dean in the Progressive academic world, and the University and its students are fortunate that it did not stick. It strongly suggests the University needs more, not less, oversight – and a good strong dose of common sense, moderation and balance, sorely lacking today. The debacle will stay alive because those responsible for and supportive of it (like the J-School dean and faculty Chair) want it to fester as a platform from which to issue shallow, unlearned comments like Ms. Rainey’s and promote “cures” for a problem in their minds but not in rationality.