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Nikole Hannah-Jones Refuses to Start New Job at UNC-Chapel Hill Unless She Gets Tenure

Nikole Hannah-Jones Refuses to Start New Job at UNC-Chapel Hill Unless She Gets Tenure

“will not take the position without tenure.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xzNyrFhzew

Hannah-Jones and her defenders are really making a federal case out of this. They’re really angry about it.

The College Fix reports:

‘1619 creator’ refuses to start her job at UNC unless she’s immediately granted tenure

Although she accepted University of North Carolina’s offer to teach at the journalism school on a fixed, five-year team, Nikole Hannah-Jones said she will not start her job until she’s given full tenure.

The architect of the “1619 Project” made the announcement through her attorneys, in a letter obtained by NC Policy Watch. It is published in full at the bottom of the article.

“According to the letter, Hannah-Jones will not begin her position as Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism on July 1, as scheduled,” the left-leaning organization said. It reported that Hannah-Jones “will not take the position without tenure.”

“The letter makes clear that Hannah-Jones has not withdrawn her application for tenure and does not intend to do so,” Policy Watch said.

Jones “will not join the faculty,” in contradiction to her February 2021 contract, her attorneys said.

The letter said that Jones is “eminently qualified” and listed off a handful of awards the New York Times journalist has won.

Her attorneys allege that the university agreed to vote on her tenure in November, but that vote never happened. Despite not receiving a vote on tenure, Jones still accepted the contractual offer in February “to minimize the monetary damages she incurred” and to minimize “the damage to her reputational standing.”

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Comments

The Friendly Grizzly | June 24, 2021 at 8:08 am

Bye.

Next, will she hold her breath until she turns blue if she doesn’t get tenure?

Perhaps she should try to become a serious scholar with serious accomplishments and earn tenure rather than behave like the egocentric entitled child she really is. This is a prime example of why these people cannot be reasoned with. Their egos are so large there is little room left over for things such as real intellect.

    GWB in reply to Cleetus. | June 24, 2021 at 8:42 am

    Earn tenure?! Heck, her “scholarship” so far would militate against even being offered a job.

    MajorWood in reply to Cleetus. | June 25, 2021 at 7:23 pm

    I am surprised that she didn’t try for Roy Williams job. She is just as qualified for that as for serious scholarship.

    DSHornet in reply to Cleetus. | June 26, 2021 at 9:24 am

    A blue face will be quite a contrast to that hair. She already looks like she stuck her tongue in a light bulb socket.
    .

in contradiction to her February 2021 contract
Well, then, she’s in breach. Is there any precedent for holding her financially responsible? (I’m certain the school put out some sort of ‘consideration’ in view of her initial agreement.)

Also, if colleges were smart, they would now blackball her from any sort of position, ever. Yeah, I know….

The school will try to buy her off with a big check, just for showing up as required.

She will accept the money, show up for work exactly once, then sue them for not giving her tenure anyway.

OK, sure. Bye!

I agree with other comments: If the contractual obligation is to start work on July 1 and she doesn’t, I would take the view that the letter expressing her intent not to constitutes withdrawal of her acceptance of the job offer, and move on to the next qualified candidate.

Maybe the university should reconsider whether she’s a good fit with the university family if she’s going to throw disruptive tantrums like this.

An alternative, of course, is that she’s just Kaepernicking the whole thing to get attention.

I love the sound of backfire in the morning.

Suggested counter-offer by UNC-Chapel Hill:

“Don’t let the door knob hit you in the a** on the way out.”

Any legal analysis must begin with donor intent. Who gave the money to fund the Knight Chair? What was the vision behind the gift? Was the idea that an experienced journalist would be hired to reside full time on the campus and participate in full measure in building a robust academic environment both through teaching courses as well as advising students? As a matter of academic freedom and freedom of expression, tenure has been offered to professors so that they do not live in fear that they would be fired for saying “the wrong thing.” However, academia has many term appointments – visiting faculty for 1 or 2 semesters, assistant professors who are hired for 3 years at a time, adjunct or professors of practice that are hired on a semester by semester or annual basis. In general, professors who are hired for a term do not have tenure.

Tenure is the top of the pyramid, and only a small fraction of the faculty get tenure. Similarly, only a fraction of the tenured faculty hold named, endowed chairs.

None of the news coverage explains what UNC really wanted from the person holding the Knight Chair and Ms. Jones has not been clear as to what she expected from holding the position for 5 years — was it a transition from journalism to academia, or was it a platform from which to focus on holding a national stage for sharing her opinions regarding racial matters.

The North Carolina journalism school faculty wanted another left-wing fraud to join their ranks. The board was fully correct in refusing her tenure. Let us hope it stick to their guns. Faculty and administrators can recommend appointments and tenure. But the final legal responsibility lies with the governing board. Her work was a travesty on scholarship.

I’m truly amazed that nobody has crushed this person’s face, yet.