Journalist chooses Howard over UNC after tenure flap
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — A Black investigative journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for her groundbreaking work on the bitter legacy of slavery in the U.S. announced Tuesday that she won’t join the faculty at the University of North Carolina after an extended tenure fight marked by allegations of racism and conservative backlash about her work.
Nikole Hannah-jones instead will accept a chaired professorship at Howard University, a historically Black school in Washington, D.C.
The dispute over whether North Carolina’s flagship public university would grant Hannah-jones a lifetime faculty appointment had prompted weeks of outcry from within and beyond its Chapel Hill campus. Numerous professors and alumni voiced frustration, and Black students and faculty questioned during protests whether the predominantly white university values them.
And while UNC belatedly offered her tenure last week, Hannah-jones said the unfairness of how she was treated as a Black woman steered her toward turning the offer down.
“I wanted to send a powerful message, or what I hope to be a powerful message, that we’re often treated like we should be lucky that these institutions let us in,“said Hannah-jones, who earned a master’s degree from UNC. “But we don’t have to go to those institutions if we don’t want to.”
The 45-year-old Hannah-jones instead will accept a tenured position as the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard, which also announced Tuesday that award-winning journalist and author Ta-nehisi Coates is joining its faculty. Coate won a National Book Award for “Between the World and Me.”