News & Observer: “One of the reasons Nikole Hannah-Jones turned down a professorship at UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media could be a problem for its future. The prominent Black journalist said she couldn’t work at a place named for the man who told UNC leaders that he doubted her suitability. Hussman was bothered by Hannah-Jones’ connection to ”The 1619 Project,” a New York Times special report that expressed controversial views on the roles of slavery and race in U.S. history.
Hannah-Jones has moved on to teach about race and journalism at Howard University. But Walter Hussman Jr. – who pledged $25 million to the journalism school and had it named for him in 2019 – is still very much a presence in Chapel Hill. Not only is his name on the school, but his core values of journalism centered on impartiality and objectivity are prominently displayed – and were expected to be engraved – at the entrance of the journalism school.
All this raises questions. If Hannah-Jones couldn’t work under the Hussman banner, will other journalists of color want to teach there? Will minority journalism students be drawn to a university where a key member of the Board of Trustees held up giving tenure to a Pulitzer Prize-winning Black journalist after all her white predecessors in the teaching post received it?”