BY CAROLYN BETENSKY

Faculty members who would have been Professor Nikole Hannah-Jones’s colleagues at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina have written a powerful statement voicing support for her decision not to accept the tenured position she was offered last week at their school. After a demeaning and politically tainted hiring process that defied basic principles of academic freedom as well as the institution’s own previous record of conferring tenure on occupants of the endowed position, the MacArthur Award winner and author of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning “1619 Project” announced that she will be taking a tenured position as the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University instead.

While disappointed at their institution’s loss of the star of Hannah-Jones’s magnitude, the signatories to the statement express gratitude to her for shining a national spotlight on systemic racism at UNC. You can read the faculty statement here.

Contributing editor Carolyn Betensky is professor of English at the University of Rhode Island, an AAUP Council member, and a cofounder and executive committee member of Tenure for the Common Good.