Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Republicans don’t trust women.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Let’s finish the job.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

“Squeaker” McCarthy

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

He really is that stupid.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Second rate reporter says what?

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Black Lives Matter / Open Thread: Concerning Nikole Hannah Jones’ New Role

Open Thread: Concerning Nikole Hannah Jones’ New Role

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Excellent news! But Ms. Hannah Jones has a side note:

Extracts from a thread that’s worth reading in full:

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!

Reader Interactions

58Comments

  3. 3.

    Kay

    That interview, wow.  “It’s just not something that I want anymore”

    Good for her. Applause.

  4. 4.

    Immanentize

    Go where you are celebrated, not just where you are tolerated.

    This thought is changing my future.

  6. 6.

    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)

  7. 7.

    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.

  9. 9.

    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.

  11. 11.

    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.

    “I cannot imagine working at and advancing a school named for a man who lobbied against me, who used his wealth to influence the hires and ideology of the journalism school, who ignored my 20 years of journalism experience, all of my credentials, all of my work, because he believed that a project that centered Black Americans equaled the denigration of white Americans. …”

    and

    “I do not come from a wealthy and connected family. I did not arrive at Carolina with the understanding that no matter how I performed, I would have a job and prominent position guaranteed. My dad drove a bus and my mom was a probation officer. I got into Carolina on my own merits. I scraped to secure internships at small papers like High Point Enterprise. I got my first job covering schools for the Chapel Hill News. At age 27, when a certain wealthy donor was inheriting the publishing gig from his family paper, I was interning at the News & Observer while working a second job as a mattress salesperson to make ends meet.

    For anyone following North Carolina politics (and Jane Mayer sure has), this little detail was highly informative:

    The think tank [that the unnamed donor leaked to] had formerly been named after Art Pope, an influential conservative activist

    Ugh. Horrible man.

  12. 12.

    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.

  13. 13.

    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.

  14. 14.

    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.

  15. 15.

    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.

  17. 17.

    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.

  19. 19.

    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.

  20. 20.

    MomSense

    She’s extraordinary.  The truth that xenophobes and racists can’t fathom is that our diversity is our strength.

  22. 22.

    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.

  24. 24.

    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.”

  25. 25.

    Elizabelle

    She addressed in her letter the possibility the rightwingers were celebrating:

    Many people, all with the best of intentions, have said that if I walk away from UNC, I will have let those who opposed me win. But I do not want to win someone else’s game. It is not my job to heal this university, to force the reforms necessary to ensure the Board of Trustees reflects the actual population of the school and the state, or to ensure that the university leadership lives up to the promises it made to reckon with its legacy of racism and injustice.

    For too long, powerful people have expected the people they have mistreated and marginalized to sacrifice themselves to make things whole. The burden of working for racial justice is laid on the very people bearing the brunt of the injustice, and not the powerful people who maintain it. I say to you: I refuse.

    In the case of my tenure, the university has, begrudgingly, done the absolute minimum. In a split vote, it did what it was supposed to have done 7 months ago and, in doing so, many believe the university has resolved the issue. It has not.

    And some good reporting.  These numbers stand out, in shame.  1.9 % of tenured faculty are Black women.  Out of 5% total Black faculty.

    • Agree to address the demands issued by the Carolina Black Caucus more than two years ago. To be effective, these efforts must include an actual commitment, with targets, for recruiting, supporting, and retaining Black faculty. While I provided an easy case for many to rally around, had I come, I would have been just the second tenured Black woman professor in the 70-year history of the UNC journalism school, and I would have been its first and only Black woman full professor. Black women account for just 1.9 percent of tenured faculty at UNC, and Black professors together account for just 5 percent in a state that is 22 percent Black and at a university where the student body is 11 percent Black. These issues predated my tenure and cannot be laid at the foot of a politically appointed board, since the tenure hopes of most Black professors are quashed before they even reach the Board of Trustees.

  27. 27.

    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.

  28. 28.

    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.

  29. 29.

    Elizabelle

    I like her credo.  “I refuse.”  To participate in a bad or demeaning thing.

  31. 31.

    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.

  32. 32.

    dopey-o

    @Elizabelle:  I like her credo.  “I refuse.”  To participate in a bad or demeaning thing.

    ”Non serviam” (I refuse to submit.) Stephen Dedalus, among others.

  33. 33.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Immanentize: They never denied her tenure.

    That seems at odds with her statement.

    I said yes, and then, like every other person who has been named a Knight Chair at Carolina, I began the rigorous tenure process.
    As part of the months-long tenure process, I had to write a teaching statement, a creative statement and a service statement. I had to teach a class while being observed by faculty. Dean King solicited letters to assess my portfolio of work and professional accomplishments from several academic experts in the field of journalism whom I did not personally know. I presented to the journalism faculty. Following these steps, my tenure was put to vote by all the full professors of the journalism school, who were overwhelmingly in support.
    My tenure package was then submitted to the university’s Promotion and Tenure committee, which also overwhelmingly approved my application for tenure. My tenure package was then to be presented for a vote by the Board of Trustees in November so that I could start teaching at the university in January 2021. The day of the Trustees meeting, we waited for word, but heard nothing. The next day, we learned that my tenure application had been pulled but received no explanation as to why.

  34. 34.

    zhena gogolia

    I hope everyone has read her writing in the 1619 Project. It is fantastic and eye-opening.

  35. 35.

    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”!

  36. 36.

    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.

  38. 38.

    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.

  39. 39.

    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.

  40. 40.

    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.

  41. 41.

    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.

  42. 42.

    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.

  43. 43.

    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.

    Being asked to return to teach at Carolina had felt like a homecoming; it felt like another way to give back to the institution that had given so much to me. And now I was being told that the Board of Trustees would not vote on my tenure and that the only way for me to come teach in the fall would be for me to sign a five-year contract under which I could be considered for tenure at a later, unspecified date. By that time, I had invested months in the process. I had secured an apartment in North Carolina so that I would be ready to teach that January. My editors at The New York Times had already supplied quotes for the press release of the big announcement. I did not want to face the humiliation of letting everyone know that I would be the first Knight Chair at the university to be denied tenure. I did not want to wage a fight with my alma mater or bring to the school and to my future colleagues the political firestorm that has dogged me since The 1619 Project published. So, crushed, I signed the five-year contract in February, and I did not say a word about it publicly.

    “But some of those who had lobbied against me were not satisfied to simply ensure I did not receive tenure. When the announcement of my hire as the Knight Chair came out at the end of April, writers from a North Carolina conservative think tank called the James G. Martin Center railed against the university for subverting the board’s tenure denial and hiring me anyway. The think tank had formerly been named after Art Pope, an influential conservative activist who now serves on the UNC Board of Governors, who had helped birth the center. The article questioned how I had been hired without the Board of Trustees approval, and its writer argued that, because the university hired me anyway after the board stymied my tenure, the Board of Governors “should amend system policies to require every faculty hire to be vetted by each school’s board of trustees.” And yet, when that article was published, it had not been made public that I had been hired without the board approving my tenure or my hire. Even faculty at the journalism school were not aware that I had not been considered for tenure and would not learn this until some days later.

    “Nine days after the James G. Martin Center published this piece, reporter Joe Killian at N.C. Policy Watch broke the story that, because of political interference and pressure by conservatives, I had been denied consideration for tenure and instead offered a five-year contract. The story about the denial of consideration went viral, and I was dragged into the very thing that I had tried to avoid as the actions of the Board of Trustees became a national scandal.

  44. 44.

    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.

  45. 45.

    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.

  46. 46.

    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.

  47. 47.

    Suzanne

    @Elizabelle:

    But I do not want to win someone else’s game. 

    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.

  48. 48.

    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.

  49. 49.

    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.

  50. 50.

    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.

  52. 52.

    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.

  54. 54.

    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.

  55. 55.

    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.

  56. 56.

    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.

  57. 57.

    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.

  58. 58.

    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.

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