Nikole Hannah-Jones has spent a bit of time in the press in recent months when she was denied tenure at UNC. Behind the scene details were made public on July 3. They were as bad as I thought that they would be.
Nikole Hannah-Jones is the author of the 1619 Project and has received more awards for her journalism skills than most people have. She is also the recipient of the Macarthur Genius Award which puts her in the rarified world of the best. Most of you know the story. She was denied tenure by UNC after she was supported by UNC faculty. She was embarrassed by this to say the least. There was a reversal by the Board of Trustees who changed course to finally grant tenure. But you haven’t heard the name, Walter Hussman, Jr, who gave 25 million dollars to the Journalism School and indicated in a recent interview that he was innocent in holding up the scholar’s tenure declaring that he “just was expressing” to the school that he had reservations. “I didn’t pressure anybody including the Dean, Susan King, or the Chancellor or Vice Chancellor.”
He did admit that he sent five emails to the school but not to all members of the board as he thought that would be inappropriate. Later it was discovered that he sent emails to a good many people in power at the school. Everyone should be able to express their opinion. True, but not if you have given the school twenty-five million dollars. He was concerned about the 1619 Project and how her views would “overshadow” the school. There has been so much in the news about this project and Critical Race Theory that it has been seized by Republicans as a danger to America. What was clear in recent press is that few people when asked didn’t know what was really in the 1619 Project or Critical Race Theory either. Their currency is in soundbites.
I attribute a lot of the blame for this to the disconnect between Smart Street and Main Street. Don’t come up for a theory that is an academic theory meant to understand the history of race in our country and conflate it with the 1619 Project. It is clear that the Republicans don’t see it as a lens to understand history. It is a systems approach. It is not meant that white people are bad by definition or racists. The theory is not meant to create discord among races.
Mr. Hussman didn’t threaten to withdraw his funds which was one of his points of argument. He was just letting people know how he felt. It gets worse. Susan King called him “to make him aware” of Hanna-Jones tenure track. Hussman threw King and Tom Cotton, the Republican Senator of Arkansas, which is the state where Hussman resides, under the bus. He indicated that having Cotton as his Senator put him in a difficult place as he was an author of a bill to ban the teaching of the 1619 Project. Hussman owns a media company where he insists that there has to be a balanced view. One of his longtime journalists indicated that he is mini-Rupert Murdoch.
The 1619 Project indicates that black people fought back for their freedom. Hussman criticized that part of the Project for not giving enough credit to the white soldiers in the Civil War.
I have been impressed in the interview by the way many on the Board of Trustees were shocked that a potential hire would be determined by a person giving the school a lot of money. They were shocked that he knew more than they did. King refused to be interviewed. In my opinion, she is the fly in the ointment.
Finally, Hussman responded to the accusation that he was “throwing his weight around” with the comment that “it may have been inferred but never implied.” That reminds me when Clinton was asked if he had sex with Monica Lewinsky when he replied, “It depends what the meaning of is, is.” Both wanted to play with semantics.
Howard University has been the recipient of a great faculty member. Their gain is UNC’s loss.
I always told my ethics students that “whenever you have money involved, you have ethics.”
Whenever you have a community such as independent schools or UNC that contain diversity in wealth, you will always be subject to the accusation that you treated someone better because they gave more money to the school. It’s a go to argument for some. However, the real issue is that you must be hyper vigilant that justice and fairness are at the heart of the school. For faith based schools, this is the norm.
I have been blessed to work with three ethical heads of school. I have been threatened with people withholding funds because of various positions that I took by some great accusers whose threats worked in their workplace, but they didn’t know what to do when they didn’t work with me and the heads.
I learned something very important in those moments. If you keep your eyes, ears, and hearts on the students, you never have to worry.
One Sunday night, I had a call from an angry parent who screamed, shouted, and threatened me for something that I had planned on doing for students that week which she, to say the least, disagreed as a good thing. I couldn’t get a word in. This lasted quite a while until she hung up on me.
About fifteen minutes later, the phone rang again, and I answered. It was the mother who called earlier in a rage. There was silence that I let hang there. She continued by saying, “My son overheard my conversation with you.” He said, “You can’t speak to Reverend Squire like that ever again. You must call him right now and apologize. I am sorry.”
What would I have done without the kids!
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