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Author of 1619 Project Rejects Tenure Offer at UNC, Takes New Position Elsewhere

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The creator of the controversial 1619 Project is rejecting an offer of tenure at the University of North Carolina so that she can teach at a historically black college.

Howard University on Tuesday announced that Nikole Hannah-Jones is being hired as the  Knight Chair in Race and Journalism.

The college also announced that Ta-Nehisi Coates, a strident supporter of reparations for slavery, has also joined the college’s faculty, according to a release from Howard.

“I am so incredibly honored to be joining one of the most important and storied educational institutions in our country and to work alongside the illustrious faculty of the Cathy Hughes School of Communications and the brilliant students it draws in,” Hannah-Jones said in the release.

“We are at a critical juncture in our democracy, and yet our press does not reflect the nation it serves and too often struggles to grasp the danger for our country as we see growing attacks on free speech and the fundamental right to vote,” Hannah-Jones said in the release.

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“In the storied tradition of the Black press, the Center for Journalism and Democracy will help produce journalists capable of accurately and urgently covering the challenges of our democracy with a clarity, skepticism, rigor and historical dexterity that is too often missing from today’s journalism,” she said.

The decision was controversial.

Hannah-Jones, whose skewed view of history teaches that slavery is at the root of all American history and that the real story of America began with the arrival of slaves in the Virginia colony in 1619, had been involved in a controversial fight over granting her tenure at the University of North Carolina.

Is this college trying to institutionalize extreme racism?

Hannah-Jones said the fact that she did not get tenure without a struggle impacted her decision to leave UNC.

It was a “very difficult decision,” Hannah-Jones said. “Not a decision I wanted to make.”

“Look what it took to get tenure. … This was a position that, since the 1980s, came with tenure,” she said, referring to her appointment as Knight Chair at UNC.

“Every other chair before me, who also happened to be white, received that position with tenure,” she said.

She said that after the decision to grant her tenure became “a national scandal” that came out in her favor, it was “just not something that I [wanted] anymore.”

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Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.
Jack can be reached at jackwritings1@gmail.com.
Location
New York City
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Topics of Expertise
Politics, Foreign Policy, Military & Defense Issues




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