The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has reached a settlement with Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The New York Times Magazine, over a tenure dispute, the school said Friday.
“The steps taken to resolve Ms. Hannah-Jones’ lingering potential legal action will hopefully help close this chapter and give the university room to focus on progress,” said President David Boliek of the university’s supervisory board. in a statement.
The settlement was for less than $75,000, Mr. Boliek told The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C.
In April 2021, Ms. Hannah-Jones was announced as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the university’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media. She was offered a five-year contract as a professor in lieu of the usual tenure, and her appointment drew criticism from conservatives who disagreed with her involvement in The Times’s 1619 Project, which re-examined slavery in the United States.
The failure of the university to approve Ms. Hannah-Jones’ tenure sparked strong opposition from faculty and students, as well as academics and journalists outside the school. Ms. Hannah-Jones said she was considering legal action against claims of discrimination. Under pressure, the board of trustees returned and a month later granted her a permanent position.
Ms. Hannah-Jones, who received a master’s degree from UNC in 2003, then announced that she would no longer be joining the university and would instead join the Howard University faculty.
In a statement Friday, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Inc., acting on behalf of Ms. Hannah-Jones, said they were pleased to have reached a settlement and believed the agreement would support the university’s work to address racial inequality.
“Mrs. Hannah-Jones is grateful to have this case behind her,” said Janai S. Nelson, the president and director counsel of the Legal Defense Fund. “And she looks forward to continuing her professional work, committed to using the power of investigative journalism to uncover the truth about the manifestations of racism in our society and to train the next generation of aspiring journalists to do the same in her academic home at Howard University.”
