MacArthur Fellows @nhannahjones and Ta-Nehisi Coates join the @HowardU faculty to establish the Center for Journalism and Democracy: #MacFellow https://t.co/FlD5uZcFC9 pic.twitter.com/4IAmJkt3ei
— MacArthur Foundation (@macfound) July 6, 2021
Excellent news! But Ms. Hannah Jones has a side note:
Whew. This thread. Much, much respect to @JoekillianPW, a dogged, smart, well-sourced reporter, the one who broke the UNC tenure story in the first place. https://t.co/zPs5gVj60d
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) July 6, 2021
Extracts from a thread that’s worth reading in full:
A part of this was Hussman saying to me, repeatedly, "Well, Joe, you and I are both reporters…" or "Well, since we're both journalists I think you understand…"
This is a common rhetorical device. Find an area of common ground, assert affinity, create a bond.
— JoekillianPW (@JoekillianPW) July 6, 2021
Walter Hussman can legitimately say that to people — with a few important asterisks.
After journalism and business school, Hussman was briefly a reporter before, at age 27, he was made publisher of a paper in the family media dynasty he would go on to inherit.
When I was 27 years old I was a beat reporter on a daily newspaper going to fires, murder scenes, protests and government meetings. I practically slept in the newsroom, which was much nicer than my apartment, and took side gigs to afford to sleep indoors and eat while reporting…
Those are, as it happens, experiences I do share with Nikole Hannah-Jones.
As a Black woman, she had to work longer and harder than I did to get ahead in newsrooms. With more grit and talent, she’s earned much more success. But we both worked our way up from working class roots…
Neither of us were, in our mid twenties, handed news outlets by our families. Neither of us were allowed to lose enormous amounts of money in years-long, heavily political newspaper wars until we crushed our rivals, assumed dominance and expanded our intergenerational empires.
I suspected this may be one of the things that most offended Hannah-Jones about Hussman questioning her media values and credentials, whether she was fit to teach young journalists. And my interview with her confirmed it.
Hussman did not work his way from the Chapel Hill News to the New York Times. His reporting and writing haven’t earned him Peabody, Polk, Pulitzer and National Magazine Awards. His name isn’t on UNC-Chapel Hill’s journalism school because of his staggering reporting achievements.
Understanding, as he must, the difference between his CV and that of Nikole Hannah-Jones, he still felt the need to tell Susan King, dean of the J-School and UNC-Chapel Hill, he was against her hire.
King said thanks for the input, but the J-School would make the decision.
Did Hussman respect the decision of the dean, herself a pioneering woman in journalism? Leave the issue to the stellar J-School faculty?
No. He contacted the chancellor. He contacted the vice chancellor in charge of financial giving. He contacted at least one member of the BOT…
And then the murders began, as the meme has it. Read the whole thing!
JUST IN: Award-winning journalist @nhannahjones reveals on @CBSThisMorning she has declined the University of North Carolina's offer for tenure and will be the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Reporting at @HowardU. pic.twitter.com/w9j0gVe0cd
— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) July 6, 2021
HumboldtBlue
I just finished reading Jones’s statement and it’s a must-read.
jnfr
I saw this when I got up today and it made the whole day better, the future brighter.
Kay
That interview, wow. “It’s just not something that I want anymore”
Good for her. Applause.
Immanentize
Go where you are celebrated, not just where you are tolerated.
This thought is changing my future.
prostratedragon
Coming on Joy Reid now.
chris
I’m from NC…ex-wife and daughter are UNC Alums…and I couldn’t be more pleased for Ms. Hanna-jones. UNC blundered into this..not to mention Dr Malinda Lowery leaving for Emory. Go where you’re appreciated not tolerated
(Shakes fist at Imm who got there first at more eloquently)
VOR
She made her point, that UNC should have given her tenure. And then she went to a place they actually wanted her. Bravo, excellent move.
debbie
I hope Hussman is made to pay in some way for his despicable behavior.
Glory b
I am angry that Hussman went so far to have UNC deny her tenure. He went waaay out of his lane, ignored the female dean who thanked him for his opinion but made it clear that the decision was an academic one.
I also read that a black female scientist that UNC was recruiting declined their offer and told them that their treatment of Nikole Hannah-Jones was the reason.
JPL
Unfortunately, Hussman is celebrating too. That’s how they roll.
Elizabelle
That letter is phenomenal. A masterclass in informing its readers, with good clear language, while throwing a good amount of shade. Gauntlet, thrown.
And she pulls the Obama (and others’) trick of letting others know exactly of whom she speaks, but never mentioning him by name. We have all gotten a workout doing that with TFFG. Props. She doesn’t even name the journalism school named after this megabucks donor.
and
For anyone following North Carolina politics (and Jane Mayer sure has), this little detail was highly informative:
Ugh. Horrible man.
VOR
@Glory b: In a just world this decision by UNC ought to have repercussions like that. Their leadership showed who they were to the world and the world ought to believe them.
Elizabelle
@JPL: I thought about that. The rightwingers are celebrating. They got their scalp. They cannot think beyond that, so they don’t comprehend what blowback might come their way.
That behavior like theirs inspires better people to take notice, and to act.
Immanentize
@Glory b: just a point of clarification, friend —
They never denied her tenure. They just didn’t grant her tenure before she had to accept her five year contact. They didn’t meet about it. It was the student president (statutorily on the Board) who blew the whistle! (Brave) I know that is picking of nits, but a critical one.
Brachiator
I am delighted for Nikole Hannah-Jones and for Howard University.
But I am sorry that racist and reactionary pressure in UNC prevailed and that students there may lose out.
The Thin Black Duke
@JPL: Jones won, so who cares what Hussman thinks?
Villago Delenda Est
Hussman is the sort of scum that should be put on a rocketship to Praxis, and then the Klingons can deal with his racist, privileged ass.
Baud
They cancelled her, she cancelled them back twice as hard.
CaseyL
That comment – how victims of racism aren’t responsible for “fixing” racism – is something all white people should hear, and understand, and internalize.
Howard University has always been a powerhouse. If they don’t already have international renown, they should and will soon.
MomSense
She’s extraordinary. The truth that xenophobes and racists can’t fathom is that our diversity is our strength.
MomSense
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’ve been praying for surgical sinkholes.
Immanentize
@The Thin Black Duke: his name is still on the journalism school. He still has extraordinary access to the administration and Board. He runs a right wing media empire. He lost this one. But I still care some.
JPL
@The Thin Black Duke: What an amazing and talented person she is, and you are right. I still hate folks like him.
Glory b
@Immanentize: Granted.
I won’t recite all of the awards she’s won again. I’m sure the black juicers will nod when I say this, our parents and grandparents told us “You’ll have to be twice as good to go half as far.”
Elizabelle
She addressed in her letter the possibility the rightwingers were celebrating:
And some good reporting. These numbers stand out, in shame. 1.9 % of tenured faculty are Black women. Out of 5% total Black faculty.
Seriously
Members of the 1% sure do like to preen, don’t they?
jnfr
@VOR:
And she’s taking the moment to build something new, a journalism and race department at Howard, well-funded from the start. She’s amazing.
geg6
NHJ is brilliant and rich racist assholes are gonna be rich racist assholes, I guess. Too bad that UNC is now considered a bastion for rich racist assholes only by anyone who they wish to recruit in the future. Fuck ‘em. Other than VA, MD and DE, everything below the Mason-Dixon and east of the Mississippi can DIAF as far as I’m concerned. I will never step foot in any of those states (with a possible added exception of GA, but that’s probationary) ever again. In fact, I’m checking labels of everything lately and, if it comes from one of the pariah states, I won’t buy it. Fuck those places. So sick of the racists. And before some Southerner comes at me about it, I am screening businesses right here in PA and my local county in the same way. My own personal crusade that I’m sure no one will care about but makes me feel better in that at least I’m not supporting any of this bullshit.
Elizabelle
I like her credo. “I refuse.” To participate in a bad or demeaning thing.
2liberal
Go Suns!
The Thin Black Duke
@Immanentize: So many times before, black folks like Jones had no place to go when bigots slammed doors in their faces. Case in point, Colin Kaepernick, who will never play in the NFL again. I understand where you’re coming from, but I’m happy that in this case, Jones didn’t have her career, her future, and her dreams destroyed. Jones had another place to go, and I’m happy for her. As for Hussman? Let’s put more Democrats in office. That should alleviate the problem somewhat.
dopey-o
”Non serviam” (I refuse to submit.) Stephen Dedalus, among others.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
That seems at odds with her statement.
zhena gogolia
I hope everyone has read her writing in the 1619 Project. It is fantastic and eye-opening.
Jeffro
all of the above comments and then some – I’m glad she went with Howard.
Now then: on to skewering JD Vance and Mr. “Release the Insurrectionists I Incited To Beat On The Police”!
Keithly
Immanentize is correct here: her case received a tenure vote (in the end, admittedly after unexplained delays); her case was approved; she declined the tenure offer and accepted the offer from Howard University.
JPL
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Depends on the meaning of denied, since technically they pulled her application. In this situation it doesn’t really matter, because she can sleep easily tonight.
coin operated
@Keithly: ‘Her tenure was approved’ needs an asterisk the size of a football field here.
Not aimed at you personally, but fuck that ‘technically correct’ bullshit in this case.
Just Chuck
Prospective students should be aware: what they did to Hannah-Jones, they’ll also do to students. Hussman doesn’t like that you organized a rally or founded the wrong kind of student organization? He’ll come after that as well, and the Deans will fold like a napkin. Keep that in mind when selecting a university.
patroclus
@Keithly: Tenure delayed is tenure denied. In the ordinary course, tenure was supposed to have been voted on last fall – it wasn’t. And there was no explanation given. Only after multiple protests and a lot of angst did the Board reconsider a few days ago. By then, it was too late.
Elizabelle
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: They gave her tenure at the very last possible moment, and were not even going to vote on it until the student member of the Board insisted.
If memory serves, she mentioned she’d rented an apartment in Chapel Hill, so she’d be ready to start her commitment. But: no tenure agreement by her start date.
Weirdly, the NAACP site letter is not coming up. Wish I had not closed it.
CaseyL
@Keithly: The position has always, in the past, automatically been a tenured position.
For Hannah Jones, it was not. She was told to sign a 5-year contract, without tenure, and after 5 years would maybe get it.
They offered tenure only after the whole thing blew up.
Elizabelle
NH-J gives the timeline in her letter of how the tenure issue became widely known (hint: it was bitching by conservatives). And after all of this, the Board still had to be dragged kicking and screaming to vote.
Jeffro
@CaseyL: universities, stupidly, play games like this all of the time.
They should outline the process and stick. to. it. It’s not rocket science.
Immanentize
@Glory b:
@The Thin Black Duke:
I’m not disagreeing with anything you are saying. I suspect I have b en following her experience at UNC for as long and as closely as most outside observers.
My point is that the method of trying to get rid of NHJ was not overt (deny her tenure) but softer neglect. Which wins in Court? “They denied me tenure!” Or “They waited longer than sometimes before they granted me tenure.” It doesn’t change what happened but it makes clearer how the process happened.
No one disputes POC and women and gay and trans folk have to work twice as hard to get as far. My point is that we all should recognize the levers of power when they are pulled — or not pulled — and by whom.
Woodrow/asim
@geg6: So you’re not buying anything from PA?
Otherwise, your statement, as written, cuts out the many Black businesses down here. The local companies owned by white folx who are, in fact, doing the right thing, and not just speaking it when the mics are on.
As someone who came back to the American South after running away from…a lot of stuff here, I have little interest in a debate about sawing off the American South, metaphorically or otherwise. In part that’s because having seen over decades how the North implements Racism, has taught me that America as a whole has a problem.
Chicago racism came too close to beating MLK and the SCLC. Oregon was built as a White Supremacy state. You can find recent evidence of Redlining in New Jersey and Long Island.
Stop pretending that racism magically stops at the Mason-Dixon line, please and thank you.
Suzanne
@Elizabelle:
That says it all, right there.
This is a really good lesson and learning it is an ongoing process for me. I am thrilled that Ms. Hannah-Jones is smart enough to have learned it.
Obdurodon
@Keithly: “Justice delayed is justice denied” — William Gladstone
It was originally meant in a legal context, but this seems similar enough. The clock was ticking, and they were running it out.
Mary G
Her statement is beautifully written and makes the righties look like the worms they are. It’s just infuriating, how she agreed to teach on a 5-year contract without tenure and they wanted to squash that too.
I’m hoping this backfires with a boom on NC Republicans in the midterms.
lowtechcyclist
@Immanentize: Oh lordy.
Look, there are many English words that are both terms of art in some field, and are ordinary everyday words to the rest of us.
But here’s the deal: the ordinary meaning of the word is the meaning of the word, everywhere except among those who routinely use it as a term of art.
For instance, as a mathematician, I don’t expect you to use the phrase “almost everywhere” in a way that gives it the same very clear and precise meaning a mathematician does, even when you’re talking to me. It would be both silly and obnoxious for me to insist otherwise.
The same thing is going on here, only with academic procedure instead of math.
zhena gogolia
@Obdurodon: She also makes a point of mentioning that it was a “split vote.” That’s another insult.
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist:
Well, given that the context here IS AN ACADEMIC CONTEXT, and in that context being “denied tenure” has a very specific meaning, I don’t think this correction is out of line.
The fact remains that her tenure was approved at all academic levels, and then the normal procedure was delayed for political reasons, and then the Board had a “split vote” when it should have been unanimous. These are insults. But tenure was not denied. That’s just not what happened here.
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist: @zhena gogolia: They fucked with what should have been a simple, timely, and unanimous vote on tenure. No way it wasn’t an insult. No need to exaggerate it.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Omnes Omnibus: Also, did everyone miss the part where it had ALWAYS BEEN AUTOMATIC PRIOR TO THIS?
Tap dancing around “Well, technically…” is intellectually and morally bankrupt, lazy, and reeks of the stench of Broderism. They get dragged into doing what had always been AUTO-FUCKING-MATIC, and then they get to play “We did the right thing in the end?”
FUCK THAT.
North Carolina was my home for over 20 years; absent some major losses in my life I’d still be there. I’ve been in a bunch of places inside and outside of this country, and can tell you for a fact, there are worse places than NC. Like others in this thread, I’ve returned to the Deep South and am fighting the fight from the belly of the beast. But NC fucked up here, and hiding behind semantics is beneath us.
End rant.
Cheryl from Maryland
As an aside, this incident shows how public universities can be diminished by GOP governors and legislatures in addition to conservative rich donors. The composition of the UNC Board is directly influenced by state GOP selection of conservatives to the Board. This has serious repercussions throughout the faculty. The UNC press, according to my spousal unit, published some of the most innovative and impressive works on 19th C America. How long is this going to last? Either the staff or the academics could easily feel standards are eroded and go elsewhere. The Chancellor and the probably mostly appointed by the GOO Board has trashed the entire University.
geg6
@Woodrow/asim:
You apparently didn’t understand my point or I wasn’t clear. I can’t spend my life researching Black owned businesses in the South for things I need or want. I’m pretty busy researching local and state businesses I can support and those I should not (nationally, it’s easier because national enterprises have lots of others researching the best companies to support. I’ve written off businesses willynilly here, many owned by people I’ve known all my life. At least here in PA, we try and we improve, fitfully and glacially, to be better. Can’t say the same for most of the South. I honestly don’t understand why Black people still live in the South. But the only weapon I have besides my political activism is my wallet. And I intend to keep using it. I support Black- and LGBTQ- and female-owned businesses here and there are plenty of vacation spots on the Mid-Atlantic coast and Great Lakes that I won’t ever miss places like Florida and the Carolinas, which never did much for me anyway. I’m not spending my hard earned money in places or at businesses that are bigoted and traitorous. I’m sorry if you live there and for those who live there that are not in charge but I can only do what I can and what I think is right. The only cash from me those states will see is the cash I send to Dem candidates and organizations there, futile as that seems to be.
sralloway
@Elizabelle: In January, 1980, I decided I could no longer work for a government agency. I did not resign. I said I would no longer be associated with the agency.
RaflW
This news was a highlight of the day. But, man is Hussman a p.o.s, and UNC sure looks like shit. Which, as a state school, is extra damn frustrating. But of course conservatives have been intent on defunding higher ed, so that schools feel pressed to seek out asshole money from amoral, unethical creeps like Hussman.