UNC to vote on Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure: report

The University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill board of trustees is planning to vote on whether to grant “1619 Project” author Nikole Hannah-Jones tenure at the school, multiple news outlets reported on Monday.

The meeting comes after the school initially denied Hannah-Jones’s tenure application due to her lack of a “traditional academic-type background.”

“The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees will hold a special meeting on Wednesday, June 30, 2021, at 3 p.m. in the Hill Ballroom at the Carolina Inn,” a UNC spokesperson told The Hill in an email. “This meeting is anticipated to go into closed session pursuant to North Carolina Open Meetings Law provisions.”

NC Policy Watch first reported the closed-door meeting of the board of trustees, which comes after a petition from Lamar Richards, UNC’s student body president, and some members of the school board.

As board prepares to vote on Hannah-Jones #tenure, struggle continues over direction of UNC https://t.co/GFcJi0gsae #ncpol via @ncpolicywatch #UNC #highered #ncpol #ncga @UNCHussman

— NC Policy Watch (@NCPolicyWatch) June 29, 2021

“The sincerest thing I can share with each of you is that Carolina is not prepared. Carolina is not prepared for the “reckoning” of which it continues to speak and it is certainly not prepared to face the reality of having to undo the entire system upon which it was built—and rebuild,” Richards wrote in a letter to the UNC community.

Hannah-Jones, a UNC graduate, was denied tenure by her alma mater in May after conservative groups complained about her hiring due to her involvement with the 1619 Project, which examines the role slavery played in the United States’s founding.

Hannah-Jones was set to teach at the school’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism.

Recently, Hannah-Jones’s lawyers said she would not join the faculty of UNC if she is not granted tenure, the AP noted.