By Ryan Shepard
May 26, 2021
A decision not to offer a Black professor tenure has never been met with more resistance. Just last month, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
Nikole Hannah-Jones posted a tweet informing her followers that she would be filling the Knight Chair In Race And Investigative Journalism at the University of North Carolina. Typically, this position comes with tenure, but the university offered her a fixed, five-year position instead. This decision has sparked backlash from a number of different groups and it s not stopping anytime soon.
More than 200 journalists, athletes, directors, actors and other public figures have published a letter calling for Hannah-Jones to receive tenure at the University of North Carolina. Published in
More Than 200 Public Figures Sign Letter In Support Of Nikole Hannah Jones binnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from binnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Dwayne Wade.
Newt Gingrich,
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and former President
Donald Trump. As the letter points out, one of the most troubling aspects of the backlash against Hannah-Jones’ work are Republican-led attempts to muzzle transparent historical teaching in schools.
“While the denial of tenure is egregious, it is not an isolated incident. The same anti-democratic thinking that blocked Hannah-Jones’ appointment at her alma mater has also fueled efforts in state and local legislatures to ban the teaching of histories of slavery and its legacies through the 1619 Project.”
A growing number of states including Arkansas, South Dakota, Indiana, Tennessee, and Texas have proposed or already passed legislation that restricts the teaching of critical race theory in public schools.
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