Nikole Hannah-Jones’ Tenure Thwarted By White Fragility

Whiteness will always white. Rich whiteness will clorox. Nikole Hannah-Jones, the journalist we can credit for The 1619 Project, was considered for hire at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. A donor, Walter Hussman Jr., was concerned that Jones’ work did not give enough credit to white people and was not objective, reported HuffPost.

Hussman donated $25 million to the school’s journalism program, and in typical fashion, the journalism department bears his name. Hussman is the publisher of the Arkansas-Democrat Gazette. He spoke

to The Associated Press and admitted that he sent a series of emails to university administrators weeks before they halted the submission for Hannah-Jones’ tenure in January.

Due to Hussman’s white nonsense, Hannah-Jones was instead offered a contract position even though previous colleagues were given tenure when they were appointed.

Hussman said that instead of one long email, he sent several separate emails expressing “concern” about the research that went into The 1619 Project. He claimed that other historians challenged the assertion that Hannah-Jones made that the American Revolution was fought to protect slavery. He would know because he was probably there.

He also took issue with the part about reparations and the fact that Black people mainly fought for equality. Hussman claimed that a trustee that he will not name told him to show the emails to other people. Basically, he did what white hateration always does and gathered a mob against Hannah-Jones.

Journalism school Dean Susan King offered to set up a Zoom between Hussman and Hannah-Jones, but in true white fashion, it never happened. King blamed it on the controversy. It was likely more because of cowardice.

Hannah-Jones’ lawyers asserted that the denial of tenure was part of conservative backlash against scholars telling the truth about the history of racism in the U.S. As a big-money donor, Hussman operated from ultra-white privilege.

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, so she has the range. Walter Hussman Jr. claims that he is amenable to meeting her. Perhaps he should have done that before being a male Karen and playing with her coins.