Unpacking Philanthropy's Extensive Role in the Nikole Hannah-Jones Tenure Saga

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Travel_with_me/shutterstock

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Travel_with_me/shutterstock

On Tuesday, Pulitzer Prize winner and MacArthur Fellow Nikole Hannah-Jones shook up the journalism and higher ed worlds when she declined the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

Instead, Howard University announced that Hannah-Jones, along with journalist and National Book Award-winning author Ta-Nehisi Coates, will join the faculty, backed by nearly $20 million in funding from the Knight, MacArthur and Ford foundations, and an anonymous donor. 

It’s a power move by Hannah-Jones, who endured poor treatment from UNC’s leadership and a wealthy donor to the school, following years of attacks from conservative detractors. It’s also a surprising development on the part of the foundations supporting the Howard program—a quick and decisive bundle of grants that sends a clear statement about their support for diversity in journalism, not to mention the interrogation of structural racism in the United States. And, of course, it’s yet another reminder of how important private funders have become in the halls of higher education and the heated debates happening within them.

The developments were the latest in a dizzying and ongoing six-month saga. Earlier this year, the UNC Board of Trustees declined to approve the journalism department’s recommendation to grant Hannah-Jones tenure, breaking precedent with previous appointments. On May 30, The Assembly’s John Drescher reported that the school’s namesake, Arkansas-based publisher Walter Hussman Jr., warned UNC leadership against the hire, citing concerns about her work on the New York Times 1619 Project, which “aims to reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of our national narrative,” according to the project. 

Hussman, who had yet to deliver a substantial portion of his $25 million pledge to the school, denied pressuring officials and insisted that Hannah-Jones’s subsequent hiring wouldn’t affect his future support. Nonetheless, his back-room machinations quickly became national news, surfacing disturbing but depressingly familiar questions about undue donor influence across higher ed. 

On June 30, UNC trustees voted 9-4 to approve tenure. But for Hannah-Jones, it was too little, too late. Speaking to NC Policy Watch’s Joe Killian about her decision to refuse the UNC position, Hannah-Jones said, “Once the news broke and I started to see the extent of the political interference, particularly the reporting on Walter Hussman, it became really clear to me that I just could not work at a school named after Walter Hussman. To be a person who has stood for what I stand for and have any integrity whatsoever, I just couldn’t see how I could do that.”

Brazen meddling

Donor meddling isn’t a new phenomenon. In fact, it probably happens a lot more than we can definitively say, whether in private emails or hushed conversations behind closed doors. A donor can demand administrators clamp down on what they consider “political correctness run amok” and then move on with their life. Others will publicly threaten to withdraw a gift if administrators fail to accede to their demands. Lately, we’ve seen such meddling in response to universities reckoning with racist elements in their histories, with alumni trying to fend off such efforts from students and faculty. 

While the form the meddling takes may change, the Hussman case is a reminder that when it becomes public, the outcome is usually bad for the university, damaging the institution’s reputation over the perception that donors are the ones calling the shots. And once the genie’s out of the bottle, it’s hard to get it back in. In the aftermath of the tenure controversy, UNC has drawn the ire of countless journalists and academics, on top of royally screwing up a prestigious new hire for the school.

I suspect Hussman knew very well how his actions would look under public scrutiny. Though he sent as many as five emails to administrators, he has said his expectation was that his emails would remain private, telling Drescher he would not have made his statements publicly. Even so, his efforts fell on the brazen side of the meddling spectrum, inserting himself into a hiring decision in what is clearly a serious overreach for a donor.

NC Policy Watch’s Killian, who has doggedly reported the story, laid out a summary of Hussman’s efforts, tweeting: “Did Hussman respect the decision of the dean, herself a pioneering woman in journalism? Leave the issue to the stellar J-School faculty? No. He contacted the chancellor. He contacted the vice chancellor in charge of financial giving. He contacted at least one member of the BOT [board of trustees]. …. As students, faculty and even members of the BOT have noted, this was enormously inappropriate.”

Hussman responds

In multiple interviews, Hussman has insisted he wasn’t pressuring officials, but it’s hard to imagine his communications could be received in any other way. His intervention unnerved Susan King, the Hussman School’s dean, who told The Assembly’s Drescher that she “felt worried enough about Walter’s repeated questions challenging our hiring of Nikole Hannah-Jones as Knight Chair and his subsequent call to at least one other donor that I asked for help from others in the administration.”

In a statement announcing her decision to become the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard, Hannah-Jones said, “I cannot imagine working at and advancing a school named for a man who lobbied against me, who used his wealth to influence the hires and ideology of the journalism school, who ignored my 20 years of journalism experience, all of my credentials, all of my work, because he believed that a project that centered Black Americans equaled the denigration of white Americans.”

In a statement drafted on Tuesday in response, Hussman wrote, “I certainly haven’t used any influence on the ideology of the school; in fact, I strongly believe a school of journalism should not have an ideology. Their job is to teach journalism, not ideology. I also do not think [Hannah-Jones] tried to denigrate white Americans. I think all those individuals of different races who fought side by side to end slavery and champion civil rights should be celebrated for working together.”

A nationwide backlash

The fact that private funders played such an important role in both the developments at UNC and at Howard says a lot about how large philanthropy looms at universities these days. At the same time, it’s important not to conflate or equate the two scenarios. When it comes to the UNC debacle, we have a clear case of an attempt at intervention by a donor, which coincided with political pressure from the right to reject the 1619 Project’s goal of centering slavery and the Black experience in the American story. 

The university seemed to be headed in the direction of hiring Hannah-Jones for quite some time—the dean of the school had been aggressively recruiting her for the Knight chair for years, she had been involved for months in the tenure process, and had overwhelming support from faculty. She also would have been the first Knight Chair at UNC not to receive tenure, and as many have pointed out, there wasn’t credible reason to deny it. In fact, the hire would have been a real score for the school, which was Hannah-Jones’s alma mater. 

So it’s understandable that, even as major donors and private funding have gained such an outsized presence on college campuses, this incident drew a unique level of outrage. The decision was so surprising and the backlash so great that institutional funders of the school had to take a position. 

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has given more than $131 million in grants to UNC since 1972, and the Democracy Fund, which has provided approximately $700,000 to Hannah-Jones’s work at the Ida B. Wells Society at UNC, issued statements encouraging trustees to reconsider their decision.

Knight President Alberto Ibargüen issued a statement that read, “It is not our place to tell UNC or UNC/Hussman whom they should appoint or give tenure to. It is, however, clear to us that Hannah-Jones is eminently qualified for the appointment and we would urge the trustees of the University of North Carolina to reconsider their decision within the timeframe of our agreement.” 

Even before the Hussman revelations, Steve Katz, the publisher of Mother Jones, lamented the “muted” response from Ibargüen, citing the influence of conservative donors like Art Pope, and urging the foundation to embark on a more proactive campaign in light of the decision.

Knight did not exactly take his advice, but the foundation did quietly get on board with a different plan that made a big splash of its own. Funders played a big role here, too, but in a very different way. 

Foundations back a new plan

Hannah-Jones told King that a number of universities reached out to her after UNC trustees initially refused to grant her tenure. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, shortly after the controversy became public in May, she had her first meeting with Wayne A.I. Frederick, president of Howard University, which set in motion her new position and the new center at the school. As their vision began to take shape, Frederick and Hannah-Jones both did outreach to secure private funding, according to the Chronicle and the Associated Press.

Funders quickly got on board. Knight committed $5 million to establish an endowment at Howard to support the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism and to develop symposia to support students and faculty across the network of HBCUs, directed by (a tenured) Hannah-Jones. She will also found the Center for Journalism and Democracy, which, according to Howard, “will focus on training and supporting aspiring journalists in acquiring the investigative skills and historical and analytical expertise needed to cover the crisis our democracy is facing.” 

MacArthur and Ford earmarked $5 million each to support the center. Hannah-Jones said she hopes to “very quickly meet the center’s $25 million fundraising goal.” In addition, an anonymous donor contributed $5 million to Howard to fund the Sterling Brown Chair in English and Humanities, which Coates will hold, and to establish the Ida B. Wells Endowed Fund to support the Knight Chair.

With the gifts to Howard, funders are signaling a bold commitment to diversity in journalism in a space where, between 2009 and 2015, only 6% of the $1.2 billion in grants invested in journalism, news and information in the United States went toward efforts serving specific racial and ethnic groups, and 7% went toward efforts serving economically disadvantaged populations.

I asked Katz at Mother Jones what he thought of the move, and he said, “the significance of a $5 million gift to Howard, coming as it does in response to the UNC debacle, is not to be discounted.” The development shows that “Big Philanthropy is more than capable of moving quickly, of doing so at scale, and in a coordinated fashion. Who would’ve expected?”

The fact that Howard is one of the nation’s most esteemed historically black colleges is also a critical element to this story. While HBCUs still have a long way to go before they reach philanthropic parity, the gifts, which came on the heels of some high-profile mega-donor commitments over the past year, reflect the growing realization across the broader community that these institutions can advance equity, economic opportunity and social justice in a powerful and impactful way.

Winners and losers

Though Hannah-Jones paid no small price for the win, she and Howard clearly came out on top here. “It’s hard not to smile and take a perverse satisfaction at the in-your-face nature of this morning’s announcement,” wrote the Progressive Pulse’s Schofield. 

Given this prevailing sense of schadenfreude, part of me felt the urge to frame Hussman’s intervention as a classic cautionary tale or the philanthropic equivalent of an ABC After-School Special (title: “Meddling Doesn’t Pay”).

But that wouldn’t be quite right. After all, UNC trustees—at least two of whom were directly lobbied by Hussman—initially opposed her tenure. And now Hannah-Jones is headed to Howard precisely because of events set in motion by Hussman’s intervention. 

Maybe meddling does pay after all?

The After-School Special would also find the protagonist realizing the error of his ways before the credits roll. But speaking to Poynter’s Rick Edmonds after Hannah-Jones’s announcement, Hussman said, “I feel certain I did what I should appropriately have done.”

While Hussman may be at peace after setting his desired outcome in motion, University of North Carolina, faculty and students included, comes out of this a big loser. 

NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen tweeted, “At this point, you have to ask how long the North Carolina J-school will be—can be—called Hussman.” Assuming Hussman proceeds with his $25 million gift as planned, would UNC leaders run the risk of further alienating faculty, alumni and prospective hires by accepting it? Could administrators wash their hands of the episode and return what little Hussman has given so far without triggering an equally disruptive lawsuit?

Efforts are already forming on campus to heal the damage. One Hussman School graduate, Rebekah Radisch, floated the idea of raising $25 million from alumni so the school could return his donation and remove his name. And administrators may find some solace in knowing that Knight does not plan to cut ties with the school. “The Knight Chair at UNC-Chapel Hill is endowed in perpetuity,” the director of the foundation’s journalism program, Karen Rundlet, said in an emailed statement to AP.

That said, Mother Jones Katz raised another valid point, asking, “Why would *anyone* want to be the next candidate for the Knight chair at UNC?” With the Howard announcement, Knight has now endowed 26 Knight chairs and professors in journalism at 23 universities. Two of the Knight chair positions are currently open, both of which are at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.