Slate: “Earlier this year, UNC–Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media announced that it had extended acclaimed journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones a position as its Knight chair in race and investigative journalism. Like other (though not all) Knight chairs at journalism schools around the country, this was to be a tenured position. On Wednesday, the website NC Policy Watch reported that the yearslong conservative war against Hannah-Jones—predicated chiefly on her leadership of the New York Times’ controversial 1619 Project—seemed to have succeeded in robbing her of tenure, along with all the job stability and protections for academic freedom that status entails.
This was a job with “Nikole Hannah-Jones”—2003 alum of the Hussman School and recent winner of both the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for commentary and a MacArthur “Genius Grant”—written all over it. But Policy Watch reported that, as the result of an apparent compromise between the university’s chancellor (who supported her appointment) and the board of trustees, Hannah-Jones will start in July but not with tenure. She’s been offered, instead, a five-year term, with a tenure review to take place at the end of that time. To other professors looking on, this was clearly chilling. “That’s literally saying they’ll tenure her if she behaves appropriately at UNC, rather than tenure her based upon her record as reviewed by peers, colleagues, academic supervisors, etc.,” noted journalism professor Michael Socolow on Twitter.”