Diversity in tenured positions is rare at NC universities, data shows

Friday marks the deadline lawyers have given to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to offer Nikole Hannah-Jones full professor status with tenure.

The letter, first obtained by Policy Watch, laid out Hannah-Jones’ case and demands the 1619 Project journalist is offered tenure or the school will face a lawsuit. Lawyers for Hannah-Jones are demanding UNC upholds their initial official and Hannah-Jones receives a tenured position as Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

UNC has few Black women with the academic rank Hannah-Jones is hoping to be offered. According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, out of the 622 professors with tenure at UNC during the 2019-2020 school, only eight were Black women.

That's about 1% of the full-time professors with tenure at the school.

The ongoing controversy at UNC surrounding Hannah-Jones has led to a number of people questioning the tenure process - how it works and who is offered these positions.

"We can do a long discussion about tenure matters, but it does," said Dr. Daryl G. Smith, an expert in higher education diversity and inclusion at Claremont Graduate University.

Smith said it's particularly important for women, in general, who are researching feminist scholarship and ethnic studies.

"You're raising sometimes difficult questions and one of the realities is, if you're untenured, you feel more vulnerable to whether your department approves of the kinds of questions you're asking," Smith told WRAL.

Diversity data

UNC is not the only local school that has disparities in tenured position. Nationwide, white men make up the majority of full-time professors, accounting for 55% at all schools across the country. Hispanic women have the lowest representation at 1%.

In addition to UNC, WRAL analyzed data at Duke and NC State to get an idea of their tenure trends.

In total, there are more than 3300 people with tenure at the three schools combined, 77% of whom are white.

At NC State in Raleigh, there were more than 1000 people working full-time with tenure during the 2019-2020 year. Most - 74% were white. According to the data, NC State has offered tenure to 44 people who are Hispanic. At 4.3% of the tenured positions, that's the highest rate for the ethnic population at local schools.

At Duke, 79% of the tenured positions are filled by white people, 14% are Asian, 4% Black and 3% Hispanic. There were three people with tenure who identify as two or more races and no one with tenure identifies as Native Hawaiian or American Indian/Native Alaskan.

"The absence of diversity"

Duke has the largest disparity among faculty demographics and the undergraduate student population. At the Durham-based campus, about 4 out of every 5 people with tenure are white but only 2 out of every 5 students is white.

WRAL analyzed information from North Carolina Central - a historically Black college located in Durham. The student body is mostly Black - 81%. The school boasted the most diverse tenured faculty with more than 54% of their tenured staff being Black. There are 180 people with tenure on campus and about a quarter are white and 12% Asian. Still, people who identify as Hispanics make up less than 2%.

But Smith, the researcher from Claremont, said we're a long time from the undergraduate and faculty populations being identical since, historically, graduate student populations have been predominantly white. She says tracking the trends and if it is improving is what matters.

"It's not so much are we at a point where it's a perfect alignment between undergraduate or student demographics and faculty," Smith said. "The fact is that if you look at most institutions, it's the absence of diversity of faculty. In many departments in many colleges, and the absence of real progress in diversifying the faculty given that our society is getting more diverse."

Duke, UNC and NC State have diversified their tenured faculty over the last two decades. In 2001, 91% of Duke's full-time tenured staff were white. It was 89% at UNC and 87% at NC State.

Efforts to diversify faculty

Both Duke and UNC told WRAL they're making concerted efforts to do more to attract and retain academics who offer different perspectives.

“Increasing faculty diversity is a critical component of our efforts to advance racial equity at Duke, as we recruit and support the faculty leaders of tomorrow,” said Dr. Vincent Price, the president at Duke University, in an email.

The university has pledged more than $16 million to recruit and retain academics from varying backgrounds including race, gender and class.

“Like many universities, Carolina’s work toward building a diverse faculty is ongoing, and the University is committed to creating and sustaining an inclusive community of students, faculty and staff," said Robert A. Blouin, UNC's Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost. "One of the ways we are working to further enrich the academic benefits of diversity is through the Building Our Community Together strategic initiative of the Carolina Next strategic plan.”

Smith said networking with diverse candidate pools.

"Most of the universities that I know are setting themselves up to solve wicked problems," Smith told WRAL. "If any problems you're trying to solve involve people, it's diverse people. So do you have to have enough diversity around your table to understand the scholarly questions to be asked and the more diversity you have, the better the decision making, the methodology. So this is an imperative for excellence."

While the researcher continues tracking tenure trends at schools across the country, she said the voices at the table and representation matters for the students.

"The absence of thorough diversity and progress and diversity in faculty hiring has implications for academic leadership," said Smith. "And, ultimately, it has implications for student success, in students seeing themselves in the future."