The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has relented and granted tenure to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones in a high-profile showdown over academic freedom and racial understanding.

The board of trustees voted nine to four in favour of Ms Hannah-Jones after refusing for weeks to decide on affirming academic protection for the creator of , which explains the central role of slavery and black Americans in the development of the US as a nation.

Ms Hannah-Jones was chosen in April by UNC faculty for a tenured position as the Knight chair in race and investigative journalism after winning the 2020 Pulitzer for Commentary for her work on the 1619 Project, a teaching tool embraced by US school districts nationwide.

But former president Donald Trump helped make opposition to the 1619 Project a litmus test for fealty to his nativist worldview,?putting the UNC board under political and donor pressure?to block the appointment.

³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ

Emotions over the matter simmered as board members gathered at the Chapel Hill campus for their long-postponed vote, with about 100 student protesters on site and police shoving some of them from the closed-door part of the meeting.

After the vote, Ms Hannah-Jones thanked her supporters for forcing the trustees to act, but did not explicitly affirm her intention to accept the job, which was due to begin the next day.

³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ

¡°These last weeks have been very challenging and difficult,¡± she?, ¡°and I need to take some time to process all that has occurred and determine what is the best way forward.¡±

In her initial response to the vote on Twitter, she complained that school officials??earlier to students that tenure deliberations were not done in public. ¡°Instead black students were shoved and punched because they were confused about the process,¡± she wrote.

After their closed-door discussion, the trustees?returned to a public session?and cast their votes to approve tenure. ¡°In so doing,¡± declared Gene Davis, a property lawyer serving as chair, ¡°this board reaffirms that our university puts its highest values first.¡±

The comment was met with sarcastic laughter from some in the audience. Mr Davis nevertheless persisted, describing the university in idealistic terms as a place for open enquiry and constructive disagreement.

¡°Our university is not a place to cancel people or ideas,¡± he said, using phrasing favoured by conservatives who feel that expanding racial awareness means rejecting American traditions. ¡°Neither is it a place for judging people and calling them names, like woke or racist. Our university is better than that, our great nation is better than that.¡±

³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ

The chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill, Kevin Guskiewicz, also addressed the trustees, expressing relief that the process had concluded and promising that ¡°Professor Hannah-Jones will add great value to our university¡±.

¡°Our tradition of shared governance at the university is now and has been one of great collaboration, and often one of great tension,¡± Professor Guskiewicz said.

The case is one among several around the country in which university leaders have?described themselves?as constrained in?their academic decision-making?by?aggressive Trump-era politics?in their state governments.

³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ

The protests arose in North Carolina after the School of Journalism and Media chose Ms Hannah-Jones for a five-year teaching contract and the board ¨C 10 of whom are white men ¨C declined to approve the accompanying condition of tenure, despite that being the consistent norm for the position since 1980.

The outgoing chair of the trustees, Richard Stevens, blamed the board¡¯s delay in granting approval on Ms Hannah-Jones lacking traditional academic credentials, even though that is also common for the position.

Those criticising the denial of tenure included the university¡¯s student government association, campus-wide faculty leaders, more than 40 faculty from the journalism school, and more than 200 scholars and social leaders from beyond the institution.

Ms Hannah-Jones eventually put her foot down, making clear she would not accept the position if it did not include tenure.

³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ

She spent the day of the board¡¯s vote in Chicago for the unveiling of a monument to journalist and civil rights activist Ida Wells. ¡°This Black woman journalist told the truth no matter how much power lined up against her, so, it is cosmically fitting that this happened on THIS day,¡± she?.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com