More than 100 protest lack of tenure for prize-winning journalist at UNC-Chapel Hill

Despite the rain, more than 100 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students, faculty, staff, alumni and others attended a Friday rally calling on the Board of Trustees to give tenure to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Hannah-Jones, a UNC-Chapel Hill alumna and a New York Times reporter, was hired in April as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the university's Hussman School of Journalism and Media. She won the Pulitzer, a Peabody Award and a "genius grant" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for "The 1619 Project" about slavery's impact on America.

Although university officials recommended her for tenure, and most of the Knight Chair faculty positions nationwide funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation are tenured, the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees has never voted on her tenure application. Instead, she was offered a five-year contract, at a salary of $180,000 a year.

Her lawyers have notified university officials that she won't start work in Chapel Hill next week, as scheduled, without tenure.

Many of Hannah-Jones' supporters believe she wasn't a shoo-in for tenure because of political backlash against the 1619 Project, and the Black community on campus called the tenure controversy a slap in the face.

"It’s definitely something that was shocking and kind of affected us as well because it makes us kind of question where is the university at in terms of how they are viewing their minority students and what our importance level is there," said Jaylen Harrell, a rising sophomore and member of the UNC Black Student Movement, which organized the rally.

"As minority students on campus, it’s important that our faculty and staff help represent us," Harrell said. "We want our voices to be heard, not just through us, but through our faculty and staff as well."

Nancy White, a third-generation UNC-Chapel Hill alumna, said her two sons, who are Black, went to the school as well and were traumatized by their experiences there.

"My son described that he was called the N-word right on Franklin Street by another student when he was breaking up a fight," White said. "He didn’t feel safe walking by 'Silent Sam.' He didn’t feel like walking down Cameron Avenue, walking down streets, walking by things of people who supported people owning other human beings."

UNC-Chapel Hill trustees haven't responded to WRAL News' repeated requests for comment on a possible tenure vote for Hannah-Jones.

Jason Stein, an assistant professor of genetics, said it was important for him to support Hannah-Jones at the rally because his application for tenure is also under consideration.

"To deny someone tenure like her that is so well-acclaimed, to have those types of awards makes me who, I think I still do OK, but not at the level that she is, it makes me very worried about what would happen," Stein said.

Student speakers at the rally said they are exhausted by having to continually fight for respect on campus.

"We are so hurt that it’s excruciating, and I cry over this. It really is so painful," White said. "Our Board of Governors and our Board of Trustees have got to make different decisions because, literally, Black lives are dependent on it."