NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES
OUTRAGE IN THE
NIKOLE HANNAH JONES
TENURE CONTROVERSY
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
If there’s anyone concerned about how awardwinning New York Times investigative journalist Nicole Hannah-Jones, recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Grant” is doing amid the growing controversy over how she’s been treated by UNC-Chapel Hill after being hired for a heralded position at it’s journalism school without the benefit of tenure, she says don’t.
“I have been overwhelmed by all of the support you all have shown me,” Hannah-Jones tweeted under her alias “Ida Bae Wells” May 20th. “ “It has truly fortified my spirit and my resolve. You all know that I will [be] OK. But this fight is bigger than me, and I will try my best not to let you down.”
It is that feisty, defiant, intellectual spirit the heralded black journalist is known for, especially after being targeted by political conservatives and contrarian historians for her keenly researched, long-form Pultizer Prize winning New York Times Magazine series, “The 1619 Project,” which tells the story of how slavery was so vital to the founding of what would eventually become the United States of America over 400 years ago when people of African descent were first brought to these shores.
The narrative profoundly contradicts the more popular adage that the nation was formally founded in 1776, when colonists declared their independence from England in search of freedom, thus downplaying slavery as the institution with which colonists built a powerful economy with.
But maintaining the 1776 narrative has proven to be the main mission of those like Republican former Pres. Donald Trump, Republican U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) and NC U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis who have opposed Hannah-Jones, accusing her of “Marxist” anti-American rhetoric, and chiding the New York Times for giving her the prime platform with which to disseminate it, especially to American students.
“Americans do not want their tax dollars diverted from promoting the principles that unite our nation towards promoting radical ideologies meant to divide us,” Tillis wrote to a constituent in a May 21st letter.
And there lies what’s at the heart of the UNC-Chapel Hill versus Hannah-Jones tenure controversy, observers say.
As first reported by NC Policy Watch several weeks ago, Hannah-Jones was hired by UNC-Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media (from which Hannah-Jones earned her Master’s Degree in 2003) to be the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism.
Her journalistic bona fides, by all accounts, exceeded the requirements.
Hannah-Jones previously reported for the Raleigh News and Observer for several years before going to The Oregonian in Portland, and then Pro Publica in New York. Her reporting gained prime notice, and applause, at the New York Times Magazine, where she focused on social justice issues before overseeing The 1619 Project.
When Hannah-Jones was hired by UNC’s Hussman School, Dean Susam King said in April, “Giving back is part of Nikole’s DNA, and now one of the most respected investigative journalists in America will be working with our students on projects that will move their careers forward and ignite critically important conversations.”
But conservatives close to the UNC Board of Trustees reportedly weren’t having it, especially when tenure, as approved by the faculty tenure committee and normally rubber-stamped by the UNC-Chapel Hill trustee board, was part of the hiring package for Hannah-Jones. Shortly after it was announce that Hannah-Jones was coming to UNC-Chapel, pressure was brought to bare on the Hussman School to eliminate the tenure offer - a lifetime appointment - changing it to just a five -year contract with the possibility of tenure at the end.
For example, Shannon Watkins of the conservative James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal (formerly the Pope Center) called Hannah-Jones an “activist-scholar.”
The two previous Knight Chairs, sponsored by the Knight Foundation of Knight -Ridder Newspapers, have been hired with tenure. The fact that Hannah-Jones was an outspoken black female professional did not escape anyone in how she was being treated, and the reaction from UNC faculty, students and colleagues was strong.
“As Hussman School of Journalism and Media faculty, we are stunned at the failure to award tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer Prize, Peabody, and MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” winner and UNC-Chapel Hill 2019 Distinguished Alumna recently inducted into the North Carolina Media and Journalism Hall of Fame,” they wrote in a May 19th open letter.
“We demand explanations from the university’s leadership at all levels,” the faculty latter continued. “Nikole Hannah-Jones does necessary and transformative work on America’s racial history.”
The UNC Board of Trustees is seen as having the final word on the Hannah-Jones hiring and tenure issue.
UNC student leaders wrote an open letter to Hannah-Jones, which said in part, “ We are frustrated and disappointed that our university, the flagship institution of the UNC System, has failed not only you, an outstanding alumna but its students, its faculty, its community as a whole…”
Protesters with signs interrupted the May 20th UNC-Board of Trustees meeting under threat of arrest. The Carolina Black Caucus also issued a letter declaring “We stand in protest.”
Lamar Richards, UNC-Chapel Hill student body president who also sits on the UNC-Chapel Hill Board, wrote an open letter chastising his colleagues for not taking the matter up in a vote thus far. Richards urged them to do so.
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NC NAACP, REV. BARBER, ASK
US JUSTICE DEPT FOR FULL
“PATTERN AND PRACTICE”
PROBE IN ELIZABETH CITY
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
The FBI is already in Elizabeth City conducting a federal civil rights investigation into the April 21st Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Dept. fatal shooting of Andrew Brown, Jr..
But the heads of the NC NAACP, the Pasquotank County NAACP and Repairers of the Breach are now also petitioning US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta to conduct a “pattern and practice” probe of both the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Dept. and the Pasquotank County District Attorney’s Office, “…to address the crisis of trust and the legitimate calls for accountability and change boiling over in Elizabeth City, Pasquotank County, and the surrounding jurisdictions, as well as to identify and help rectify systemic deficiencies which contribute to misconduct and enable it to persist.”
The civil rights leaders are requesting the federal probe via a May 24th letter to the U.S. Dept. of Justice, which is also signed by several hundred citizens of Pasquotank County.
Reverend Dr. T. Anthony Spearman, president of the NC NACCP; Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign; and Keith Rivers, president of the Pasquotank County Branch of the NAACP, spoke to reporters Friday in Elizabeth City, and had local citizens present sign a petition accompanying the letter.
“In the name of justice….Dr. King once said, ‘We are not satisfied,” Rivers told reporters, “…and we won’t to be satisfied, until justice rolls down like water.”
The missive and press conference were in response to the May 18th press conference by Pasquotank County District Attorney Andrew Womble where he announced he would not criminally charge the seven deputies for fatally shooting Brown, 42, maintaining that it was “justified” because the suspect allegedly used his car “as a weapon” when deputies attempted to serve him with a felony arrest warrant while he was in his car in front of his home.
Clips from police bodycams of the April 21st incident that Womble “displayed” shows Brown behind the wheel of a BMW vehicle as the deputies rolled up into his yard. As the deputies trained their weapons on the vehicle and demand that Brown exit it, the BMW backs up, then goes forward as shots ring out from three of the seven deputies. The vehicle rolls a few feet away until it crashes into a tree in another yard.
When deputies reach the car with weapons still drawn, and finally open the driver-side door, they discovered that Andrew Brown Jr. had been shot in his right arm, an once in the back of the head, the “kill shot.”
D.A. Womble contended that the bodycam clips showed that legally, Brown used his car “as a weapon” to fend off the deputies and was “a perceived threat,” but most observers, upon seeing the clips, believe that Brown was fleeing from law enforcement, and any contact made was by a deputy trying to stop the car physically.
One of the Brown family’s attorneys, Bakari Sellers, disagreed with Womble on Twitter, tweeting, “Four officers didn’t shoot, didn’t feel life was in danger.”
Because the shooting took place in a residential neighborhood (one of the fourteen bullets fired was later found across the street in a neighbor’s house), and there is a law enforcement policy about shooting at a moving vehicle, Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten II says the three deputies who fired their weapons will keep their jobs, but will be disciplined and retrained.
Wooten also chided his deputies for not having emergency medical services on standby, and two of his deputies for not having their body cameras on.
But atty. Sellers made clear that, on behalf of the family, the killing of Andrew Brown Jr. was unjust, and if they can’t get criminal justice, they will certainly seek civil justice by way of a lawsuit.
Others, like 2022 U.S. Senate candidate Cheri Beasley, have called for “a special prosecutor” to conduct “an independent investigation,” calling D.A.. Womble’s decision “a stunning lack of transparency.”
At Friday’s press conference, Spearman, Rivers and Barber joined the rhetorical fray, calling for the federal “pattern and practice” probe.
“How long will it take before those who are called to uphold justice, finally uphold justice?,” NC NAACP Pres. Rev. T. Anthony Spearman rhetorically asked.
“We want [U.S.] Attorney General Garland to understand that….we stand behind a full FBI investigation by the [US] Justice Dept.,” Rev. Dr. Barber concluded, reiterating the need for a full review of law enforcement in the Pasquotank County region.
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STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 05-27-21
$25,000 GEORGE FLOYD SCHOLARSHIP GIVEN TO FSU BY SISTER
[FAYETTEVILLE] Bridgett Floyd, the sister of police brutality victim Georg Floyd, has donated $25,000 to Fayetteville State University in his memory. Tuesday, May 25th was the one year anniversary of Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer, who was lat convicted of the crime the shook the world. The FSU scholarship was given to the school on behalf of the Raleigh-headquartered George Floyd Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to social justice and education.
DURHAM SCHOOL BOARD OPPOSES ANTI-CRITICAL RACE THEORY BILL
[DURHAM] The Durham County School Board is now on record opposing HB 824, the pending state House legislation that if passed, would profit the teaching of racism has played a key role in American history. In it’s resolution, the board says HB 824 would “restrict and prohibit honest conversations about race, conflict with the existing state and local education standards, and infringe free speech rights of students, educators and staff.” The board says it believes that students should be taught the truth about North Carolina and American history.
ELIZABETH CITY POLICE CHARGE DRIVER WITH HITTING TWO PROTESTERS WITH HER CAR
[ELIZABETH CITY] A motorist has been charged with two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill after she allegedly hit two demonstrators protesting the killing of Andrew Brown, Jr. with her car Monday night. Police say Lisa Michelle O’Quinn of Greenville was also charged with one count of careless and reckless driving, and one count of unsafe movement. Th two victims were Black females, and they’re injuries were deemed non life threatening.
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