Despite growing concerns over the indoctrination of America’s children through the education system, controversial founder of the 1619 project, Nikole Hannah Jones, has won her battle for tenured professorship at The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
Students who come to UNC from out of state pay over $36,000 a semester, and if they so choose, some of their tuition can go towards taking a class with Jones, a notorious advocate for critical race theory in the classroom.
UNC’s decision to tenure Jones did not come easily. They previously denied her tenure because she did not have a “traditional academic-type background”. In addition, a “powerful donor,” later revealed as newspaper publisher Walter Hussman for whom the journalism school is named after influenced the initial decision to deny Jones.
“I worry about the controversy of tying the UNC journalism school to the 1619 project. I find myself more in agreement with Pulitzer prize winning historians like James McPherson and Gordon Wood than I do Nikole Hannah-Jones. These historians appear to me to be pushing to find the true historical facts. Based on her own words, many will conclude she is trying to push an agenda, and they will assume she is manipulating historical facts to support it. If asked about it, I will have to be honest in saying I agree with the historians.” Hussman explained.
The news comes as Americans across the country and from both political parties have started to reject critical race theory being included in their child’s curriculum.
A recent Harvard/Harris poll found a whopping 61 percent of participants did not believe students should be taught that America is fundamentally racist and dominated by white supremacy.
The university appeared to try to match that sentiment in a statement on their decision.
“[UNC] is not a place to cancel people or ideas. Neither is it a place for judging people and calling them names, like woke or racist. In this moment at our university, in our state, and in our nation, we need more debate, not less. We need more open inquiry, not less. We need more viewpoint diversity, not less. We need to listen to each other and not cancel each other or call each other names. If not us, who?” said the board’s vice chairman, R. Gene Davis Jr.
“Our students will benefit from exploring thought-provoking issues and our campus reputation will be enhanced helping us keep and attract a diverse array of acclaimed scientists, researchers, doctors and scholars,” North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper stated.
Interestingly enough, while some of the people praising Jones may view her as “thought provoking” and a way to incorporate “more debate” and not “judge people” at UNC, her ideology is contrarian to this.
For starters, the 1619 project frames the history of the United States around slavery and says the nation’s true founding is 1619, not the widely recognized standard, 1776. Despite winning a Pulitzer Prize, her work was later criticized for being riddled with errors.
She was forced to make a “clarification”when she declared slavery was the primary motivation of the colonists to fight the Revolutionary War.
When it comes to the fundamentals of tolerance and holding back judgement, Jones isn’t exactly a super star there either. She once referred to white people as “barbaric devils” and has called bans on CRT dangerous.
“This fight is about ensuring the journalistic and academic freedom of Black writers, researchers, teachers, and students. We must ensure that our work is protected and able to proceed free from the risk of repercussions, and we are not there yet.These last weeks have been very challenging and difficult and I need to take some time to process all that has occurred and determine what is the best way forward,” Jones stated on the news of her tenure.
No one has called Jones out for appearing to speak to one audience, or rebutted and asked if she will defend her white students’ journalistic and academic freedom in the same way.
Critics obliterated the university for its decision on Twitter:
Remarkable. The creator of the widely debunked 1619 Project—an ahistorical false narrative that is explicitly revisionist & devalues America’s steady journey towards the ideal of racial justice—is embraced by the NYT but not in the academic world. https://t.co/5IC8w1JAsN
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 23, 2021
Big donor to Univ of North Carolina, namesake of Journalism School, said, ‘I worry about the controversy of tying the UNC journalism school to the 1619 project.’ Then school asked 1619 creator to become ‘Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism.’ https://t.co/G2o8DrxTPM
— Byron York (@ByronYork) June 23, 2021
I see any hack can get tenure at universities today. Write a fiction but call it historical research, fill it with hyperbole and non-factual information and bam, your a tenured professor. Universities are becoming a place of fiction and alternative reality.
— Marty (@marticus06) July 1, 2021
I believe you can do a full semester “studying” the Seinfeld show at some school. I think you can play video games as a class at some schools. So this 1619 nonsense being taught is not surprising. You, the consumer,not paying for it is the answer.
— John T. (@JohnT00148266) July 1, 2021
Anything short of giving NHJ exactly what she wants is “systemically racist”
— lihi cohen (@lihicohen9) July 1, 2021
No more money from me…Class of 78
— Michael Thomas (@Michael09069569) July 1, 2021
And just like that *poof* all my @UNC_Basketball gear is in the trash.
— UnitedStatriot (@UnitedStatriot) July 1, 2021
A taxpayer-funded sinecure for which she is garishly unqualified, and which she earned largely by producing disingenuous & misleading history that ignored warnings by scholars & required a correction by the paper that printed it.
— Mr Boombah (@Buckwheatie1) July 1, 2021
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Kay Apfel is a writer for BizPac Review. A news junkie turned conservative politico, Kay currently resides in Washington, DC.
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