The Progressive Pulse: “An array of prominent athletes, artists, entertainers, journalists and academics penned an open letter Tuesday, saying UNC-Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees has “failed to uphold the first order values of academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas” in its inaction on the tenure of acclaimed journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones….
The letter, published at The Root, is signed by a star-studded group that includes writer and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, Yale University emerita History professor Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, Johns Hopkins University History professor Martha S. Jones, filmmaker Ava DuVernay and Black Though, the rapper, actor and co-founder of The Roots. The signatories also include former UNC and current NBA athletes as well as academic and literary luminaries like Harvard University’s Henry Louis Gates and Union Theological Seminary’s Cornel West.
“We decry this rising tide of suppression and the threat to academic freedom that it embodies,” they wrote in the open letter. “Some of us will call upon our university administrators, public school superintendents, principals, teachers, and faculty unions and senates to issue statements of support for the freedom of ideas in the classroom. Others of us will urge philanthropic foundations to look twice at state institutions that betray that freedom. The artists, performers, and speakers below may decline invitations from institutions that suppress free thought about racism and its historical roots. We will take our views with us to the ballot box and hold local, state and national politicians accountable to the free exchange of ideas and academic freedom. We, our children, young scholars, and our country deserve no less.””