Trustees approve tenure for Nikole Hannah-Jones
In a special meeting June 30, the University’s Board of Trustees voted to approve the Hussman School of Journalism and Media’s recommendation to tenure the Pulitzer Prize-winner as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism.
In a special meeting June 30, the University’s Board of Trustees voted 9-4 to approve tenure for New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones. Hannah-Jones accepted the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media in April.
“I am glad that the matter of tenure for Nikole Hannah-Jones has been resolved,” Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz said after the vote was announced. “Professor Hannah-Jones will add great value to our University. Our students are eager to learn from her, and we are ready to welcome her to the Carolina faculty this fall.”
Acknowledging the weeks of conflict that preceded the board’s special meeting, Vice Chair R. Gene Davis Jr., who presided over the meeting, said: “In this moment at our University, in our State and in our nation, we need more debate, not less; we need more open inquiry, not less; we need more viewpoint diversity, not less.”
Hannah-Jones is a MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Grant” recipient who covers civil rights and racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine and was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Her work on the Times’ “1619 Project” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2020. Since earning her master’s degree at Carolina in 2003, Hannah-Jones has become one of the country’s leading voices in journalism, covering housing and school segregation, civil rights and racial injustice in the United States.
Knight Chair professorships, endowed by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, are designed to bring top professionals to classrooms to teach and mentor students. Hannah-Jones joins a network of independent Knight Chairs in journalism at 21 colleges and universities across the country.
