Reaction continues to build on the UNC campus against the Board of Trustees’ months-long inaction on a tenure application for incoming journalism professor Nikole Hannah-Jones, with more and more faculty members publicly calling on the Board to take a vote — and to vote in favor.

Hannah-Jones is a UNC alumna and a Pulitzer-winning journalist best known for her work on the New York Times’ 1619 Project, retelling the story of American history from the lens of slavery and its long-term effects. Earlier this year, she accepted an offer to serve as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. That position typically comes with tenure, but the Board of Trustees tabled a required vote on her tenure application – and last month, NC Policy Watch reported the delay was due to pressure from conservatives who objected to the 1619 Project. The response to that news has been a widespread outcry from UNC students and faculty, who have called the move an attempt to silence dissenting voices on campus, particularly Black voices.

Last weekend, UNC faculty chair Mimi Chapman issued an open letter calling on the campus community “to speak loudly and with one voice” to demand the Board hold a vote on tenure. “You do not have to agree with Ms. Hannah-Jones’ conclusions in The 1619 Project to do this,” Chapman wrote. “You only have to agree that faculty voice must govern the tenure process for academic integrity to have meaning. If outside bodies, in this case the BOT, without subject matter expertise are the arbiters of faculty scholarship, all faculty members run the risk of being punished for work that questions the status quo, threatens some outside interest, or makes people uncomfortable. Such a path takes us back to times when scholars from Socrates to Galileo were punished for their ideas. That is a path where light and liberty die.”

Since Chapman issued that letter, dozens of UNC academic departments, schools, and organizations have answered Chapman’s call, issuing statements of their own to demand a tenure vote.

Here is a list of the departments and organizations that have publicly expressed support for Nikole Hannah-Jones’ tenure application, with links to their statements:

American Association of University Professors, UNC Chapter
Campus Y Executive Board
Carolina Association of Black Journalists
Carolina Black Caucus
Carolina Performing Arts
Carolina Population Center
Library Association at UNC-Chapel Hill
National Association of Hispanic Journalists at UNC-Chapel Hill
Playmakers Repertory Company
Residence Hall Association
UNC Appointments, Promotion and Tenure Committee
UNC Campus Safety Commission
UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
UNC Center for Faculty Excellence
UNC Center for the Study of the American South
UNC Chancellor’s Science Scholars Program
UNC Commission on History, Race and a Way Forward
UNC Committee on the Status of Women
UNC Curriculum in Global Studies
UNC Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense
UNC Department of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies
UNC Department of American Studies
UNC Department of Anthropology
UNC Department of Art and Art History
UNC Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
UNC Department of Biology
UNC Department of Chemistry
UNC Department of City and Regional Planning
UNC Department of Classics
UNC Department of Communication
UNC Department of Computer Science
UNC Department of Dramatic Art
UNC Department of English and Comparative Literature
UNC Department of Exercise and Sport Science
UNC Department of Geography
UNC Department of Geological Sciences
UNC Department of History
UNC Department of Linguistics
UNC Department of Marine Sciences
UNC Department of Mathematics
UNC Department of Music
UNC Department of Political Science
UNC Department of Public Policy
UNC Department of Psychology and Neuroscience
UNC Department of Romance Studies
UNC Department of Sociology
UNC Department of Statistics and Operations Research
UNC Department of Women’s and Gender Studies
UNC Digital and Lifelong Learning
UNC Employee Forum
UNC Environment, Ecology and Energy Program
UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy
UNC Faculty Executive Committee
UNC Faculty Members
UNC First-Generation Student Association
UNC Gillings School Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering
UNC Gillings School Department of Epidemiology
UNC Gillings School Department of Global Health
UNC Gillings School Department of Health Behavior
UNC Gillings School Department of Health Policy and Management
UNC Gillings School Department of Maternal and Child Health
UNC Gillings School Department of Nutrition
UNC Gillings School Leadership Program
UNC Graduate Student Association of the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering
UNC Hussman School Faculty
UNC Institute of Marine Sciences
UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School Faculty
UNC Library Association
UNC Leaders in Medical Student Education
UNC Lineberger Equity Council
UNC Odum Institute for Research in Social Science
UNC School of Education
UNC School of Information and Library Science
UNC School of Law
UNC School of Medicine Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics
UNC School of Medicine Department of Cell Biology and Physiology
UNC School of Medicine Department of Medicine
UNC School of Medicine Department of Pharmacology
UNC School of Nursing
UNC School of Social Work
UNC Undergraduate Executive Branch
UNC Undergraduate Senate
The Workers Union at UNC, UE 150

Several off-campus groups and organizations have also weighed in with their own statements in support of Hannah-Jones:

1,619 UNC alumni in News & Observer advertisement
UNC Black Pioneers
Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP
Elon University’s NC Local News Shop
Ida B. Wells Society
Knight Chairs in Journalism
UNC Hussman School Black Alumni
UNC Hussman School Alumni
UNC Hussman School Alumni Board
UNC Parents (Change.org Petition)

Individual students, professors, and public officials have also issued statements of their own:

Knight President Alberto Ibargüen
UNC Chair of the Faculty Mimi Chapman
UNC Department of Geography Assistant Chair Sara Smith
UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health Dean Barbara K. Rimer
UNC Student Body President Lamar Richards
UNC Undergraduate Senate Finance Committee Chair Chris Everett

Last updated: July 1, 2021 at 10:45 a.m.

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