Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    College Advising
    Serving Higher Ed
    Chronicle Festival 2025
Sign In
Nikole Hannah-Jones, a staff writer and investigative journalist for The New York Times Magazine, poses for a portrait at the Times building in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, December 20, 2016.

The Tenure Denial of Nikole Hannah-Jones Is Craven and Dangerous

On the latest attempt to bring higher ed under the dominion of the right.

The Review
By Silke-Maria Weineck May 20, 2021

The news that the University of North Carolina will not offer Nikole Hannah-Jones a tenured position after all surprised no one who knows today’s Republicans in general and the governors and trustees within the UNC system in particular. As a group, they are craven and ignorant in equal measure, and their ears perk up whenever the dog whistle blows. But even in light of

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

The news that the University of North Carolina will not offer Nikole Hannah-Jones a tenured position after all surprised no one who knows today’s Republicans in general and the governors and trustees within the UNC system in particular. As a group, they are craven and ignorant in equal measure, and their ears perk up whenever the dog whistle blows. But even in light of their long history of indefensible decisions, this one stands out. The woman has a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur grant, and she spearheaded what is probably the most effective public-history effort in the history of the country, “The 1619 Project.” “Tenurable” doesn’t begin to cover it.

The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees did not refuse to sign off on her tenure despite those accomplishments but because of them. Universities hire faculty members who work on the history of racism and share Hannah-Jones’s broad convictions and investments all the time, and regents, trustees, and governors do not get involved. Nikole Hannah-Jones is different because she drove the conversation into places where it could not be belittled and contained. As the Johns Hopkins historian Martha S. Jones, a historian of U.S. law and governance with a focus on the ways Black Americans have shaped democracy, told me:

“Regrettably, the brilliant Nikole Hannah-Jones joins a tragically elite cadre of educators too good for tenure. She’s now a peer to the great Derrick Bell, who modeled how our purpose lies in the integrity of our work, not in the measure of functionaries. Bell gave up tenure at Harvard Law 30 years ago, after the school failed to hire any Black woman faculty member. He would understand what has happened here and recognize that his fight continues in our own time.”

And indeed, across the country, the GOP and its lickspittles have decided, in part precisely because of the success of “The 1619 Project,” that the correct way to address systemic racism is not only to deny its existence but to legally mandate this denial. Some of them know better; they are that evil. Others do not; they are that stupid. It’s hard to know who is which, and it does not much matter, since either group is happy to join the kind of pressure campaign that led to the board’s abominable decision.

The New York Times and The Washington Post have covered the story, and the backlash has been swift: The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has weighed in; an excellent faculty letter has been circulated. But neither stresses forcefully enough the other central aspect of this event: The campus’s Board of Trustees should not have any role in academic-hiring decisions whatsoever, and neither should the systemwide Board of Governors, which was lobbied to prevent Hannah-Jones’s appointment. It is reasonable to suppose that the governors passed on the pressure to the Board of Trustees. The Board of Governors’ chair, Randall C. Ramsey, builds and sells boats. The vice chair, Wendy Floyd Murphy, “is involved in the hospitality segment.” Most other members are equally unqualified to judge any tenure case in any field. The same is true for the Board of Trustees: The chair, Richard Y. Stevens, is a corporate lawyer and former GOP state senator. The vice chair, R. Gene Davis Jr., is another corporate lawyer, with “experience in real-estate law, business formation, estate planning, and estate administration.”

Nikole Hannah-Jones, a staff writer and investigative journalist for The New York Times Magazine, poses for a portrait at the Times building in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, December 20, 2016.
Nikole Hannah-JonesKarsten Moran, Redux

There is no greater threat to the future of the university than the continuing erosion of self-governance, the core organizational principle of higher education for centuries, and the reason universities are among the most stable civic institutions in the world. It is bad enough that university administrators have steadily erased the power of faculty governance and that many of them can barely be bothered to acknowledge who actually carries out the core mission of the university, i.e., the creation and dissemination of knowledge. But at least they are usually former researchers themselves, and they understand that the merit of a scholar’s work cannot be judged by a boat salesman, however fine a human being that boat salesman may be. (To be clear, I am not suggesting that the boat salesman in question is a fine human being.)

Lord knows universities are imperfect institutions, far more conservative than their reputation, and not nearly the force for good they imagine themselves to be. But at least we have the right enemies. It is time that we not only welcome their hatred but earn it by becoming the place they imagine us to be. While each individual battle matters in this regard — and the battle over Hannah-Jones’s tenure is a crucial one — the war, like all wars, is about autonomy.

The right understands this. As NC Policy Watch reported, “Last week, a columnist for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal (formerly known as the Pope Center for Higher Education) wrote that UNC-Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees must prevent Hannah-Jones’s hiring. If they were not willing to do so, the column said, the UNC Board of Governors should amend system policies to require every faculty hire to be vetted by each school’s Board of Trustees.” Given the combination of the Board of Governors’ politics with its utter lack of integrity, that would almost certainly mean the end not just of responsible historical research in the University of North Carolina system but also the end of climate science, environmental studies, poverty research, and any other investigation that undermines Republican fantasies about the world as it is and as it ought to be. It is nothing less than a blueprint to bring universities under the dominion of the right.

If we want higher education to survive this onslaught, which has been long in the making, we can no longer rely on petitions and letters, no matter how well crafted, how impeccably argued, how persuasive. Reason depends on recognition to exert its power, and this crowd will not grant recognition to reason. You cannot shame the shameless. Universities must seek to have their autonomy enshrined in law, ideally as constitutional amendments akin to the provisions that have protected the independence of the University of Michigan, Michigan State, and Wayne State since the 19th century: The Constitution establishes them as independent entities, and their regents, who stay out of the university’s academic affairs, are elected rather than appointed. The right has played a long game, and it is perilously close to winning it. Fury and disgust are good and appropriate; they are not sufficient.

A version of this article appeared in the June 11, 2021, issue.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Tags
Opinion
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
About the Author
Silke-Maria Weineck
Silke-Maria Weineck is a professor of German and comparative literature at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

More News

Vector illustration of large open scissors  with several workers in seats dangling by white lines
Iced Out
Duke Administrators Accused of Bypassing Shared-Governance Process in Offering Buyouts
Illustration showing money being funnelled into the top of a microscope.
'A New Era'
Higher-Ed Associations Pitch an Alternative to Trump’s Cap on Research Funding
Illustration showing classical columns of various heights, each turning into a stack of coins
Endowment funds
The Nation’s Wealthiest Small Colleges Just Won a Big Tax Exemption
WASHINGTON, DISTICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES - 2025/04/14: A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator holding a sign with Release Mahmud Khalil written on it, stands in front of the ICE building while joining in a protest. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators rally in front of the ICE building, demanding freedom for Mahmoud Khalil and all those targeted for speaking out against genocide in Palestine. Protesters demand an end to U.S. complicity and solidarity with the resistance in Gaza. (Photo by Probal Rashid/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Campus Activism
An Anonymous Group’s List of Purported Critics of Israel Helped Steer a U.S. Crackdown on Student Activists

From The Review

John T. Scopes as he stood before the judges stand and was sentenced, July 2025.
The Review | Essay
100 Years Ago, the Scopes Monkey Trial Discovered Academic Freedom
By John K. Wilson
Vector illustration of a suited man with a pair of scissors for a tie and an American flag button on his lapel.
The Review | Opinion
A Damaging Endowment Tax Crosses the Finish Line
By Phillip Levine
University of Virginia President Jim Ryan keeps his emotions in check during a news conference, Monday, Nov. 14, 2022 in Charlottesville. Va. Authorities say three people have been killed and two others were wounded in a shooting at the University of Virginia and a student is in custody. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
The Review | Opinion
Jim Ryan’s Resignation Is a Warning
By Robert Zaretsky

Upcoming Events

07-31-Turbulent-Workday_assets v2_Plain.png
Keeping Your Institution Moving Forward in Turbulent Times
Ascendium_Housing_Plain.png
What It Really Takes to Serve Students’ Basic Needs: Housing
Lead With Insight
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin