Nikole Hannah-Jones was appointed to the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University.
On June 30, the board of trustees of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had voted to award tenure to Hannah Jones as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism. Earlier it had appointed Hannah-Jones to the position without tenure. After a major uproar from faculty and students and a threat of litigation, the university agreed to award her tenure.
Professor Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who has been covering racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine. She is the creator of the landmark 1619 Project which commemorates the 400th anniversary of the beginning of slavery in what would become the United States by examining slavery’s modern legacy and reframing the way we understand this history and the contributions of Black Americans to the nation.
“I am so incredibly honored to be joining one of the most important and storied educational institutions in our country and to work alongside the illustrious faculty of the Cathy Hughes School of Communications and the brilliant students it draws in,” Hannah-Jones said. “One of my few regrets is that I did not attend Howard as an undergraduate, and so coming here to teach fulfills a dream I have long carried.”