THE CASE FOR THE 1619 PROJECT: ADDRESSING CRITICISMS

As Hussman’s Conservative World Turns

Hussman uses his prestigious donation to pander opinions regarding Nikole Hannah-Jones.

“We are actually fighting against the same tyranny and white supremacy that Ida B. Wells was fighting against all those years ago- Nikole Hannah-Jones.”

The powerful force behind The 1619 Project and Pulitzer Prize award-winning Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones obtained a well-deserved victory this summer. On Wednesday, June 30, 2021, the board of trustees’ 9–4 vote awarded Hannah-Jones tenure. Officially the day before, she was set to join the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Hussman School of Journalism and Media as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism, Hannah-Jones, was granted tenure.

Traditionally, this assignment comes with tenure. The two Knight Chairs before Hannah-Jones, who happened to be white, were granted tenure upon entering as Knight Chair without an issue, while Hannah-Jones, was nullified for several months. Following the nuisance of shady dealings with UNC moving the goal post, Hannah-Jones declined the offer as Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism just days after being awarded the assignment. She explained in a lengthy thorough statement her decision to dismiss the UNC offer:

“Many people, all with the best of intentions, have said that if I walk away from UNC, I will have let those who opposed me win. But I do not want to win someone else’s game. It is not my job to heal this university, to force the reforms necessary to ensure the Board of Trustees reflects the actual population of the school and the state, or to ensure that the university leadership lives up to the promises it made to reckon with its legacy of racism and injustice.

“For too long, powerful people have expected the people they have mistreated and marginalized to sacrifice themselves to make things whole. The burden of working for racial justice is laid on the very people bearing the brunt of the injustice, and not the powerful people who maintain it. I say to you: I refuse.

Fast forward to the tenure option, the Dean of the Journalism School, Susan King, offered Hannah-Jones a five-year contract to teach — an offer that would have been an insult to Hannah-Jones’ qualifications. The Knight Chair is one of the top positions for journalists. According to The Knight Chair Foundation, they are top professionals who bridge the newsroom-classroom divide with innovative teaching, major outreach projects, and their own journalism. Knowing her worth and demanding that the rules for the appointment should not change, she decided to continue to seek occupancy.

Before each victory, you will have those who attempt to discredit you. Some people will become desperate in their attempt to derail your success.

Conservative Walter Hussman Jr. did just that.

No one can deny his noticeable $25 million in donations to UNC’s Journalism School (hence why the program is named after him). However, this does not negate Hussman’s untrue controversial statements toward Hannah-Jones.

Hussman feared Hannah-Jones would bring negative attention to the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media because The 1619 Project was controversial. He claims students need to learn journalism from the statement of core values; which, are impartial reporting and editing. Further delivering the news honestly, fairly, objectively, and without personal opinion or bias. Although every Journalist should have most of these values, who decides objectivity? Objectivity for centuries has been defined from a white perspective. Many journalists of color share these sentiments.

Renowned Journalist Wesley Lowery argued objectivity in his New York Times article entitled, “A Reckoning Over Objectivity, Led by Black Journalist.”

Lowery states:

Those of us advancing this argument know that a fairness-and-truth focus will have different, healthy interpretations. We also know that neutral “objective journalism” is constructed atop a pyramid of subjective decision-making: which stories to cover, how intensely to cover those stories, which sources to seek out and include, which pieces of information are highlighted and which are downplayed. No journalistic process is objective. And no individual journalist is objective, because no human being is.

Keep in mind Hussman also created UNC’s statement of core values.

In his own words, he states that every journalist should approach journalism with traditional techniques. I digress. I believe every journalist should have integrity as well as accuracy when promoting stories. The creative ways in which they get their stories to the public are clearly up to them. Hussman comes from an era in journalism where most news outlets were printing press and television only.

Hannah-Jones, on the other hand, practices journalism in a vast and modern society. Therefore the techniques used to approach journalism should be different than centuries before. His conceptions are impossible in a world where journalism is inevitably changing and the internet rules the world.

Hussman was consistent with several letters and emails to top officials in an attempt to sway others onto the bandwagon to disprove Hannah-Jones’ successful work as an award-winning journalist and The 1619 project. In many of the emails to UNC top officials, Hussman rants about Hannah-Jones’ agenda to become Knight Chair. He insisted that she does not appear to be searching for legitimate historical facts. Furthermore, he has made many controversial comments in articles and news outlets about Hannah-Jones.

See controversial comments from Hussman below:

In a December letter to Susan King, “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.”

“My hope and vision were that the journalism school would be the champion of objective, impartial reporting and separating news and opinion, and that would add so much to its reputation and would benefit both the school and the University,” he wrote. “Instead, I fear this possible and needless controversy will overshadow it.”

Hussman said he was concerned about Hannah-Jones’ “celebrity” status and that the school would become more closely identified with the 1619 Project than with his core values of journalism.

“For the most part, black Americans fought back alone. I think this claim denigrates the courageous efforts of many white Americans to address the sin of slavery and the racial injustices that resulted after the Civil War. Courageous white southerners risking their lives standing up for the rights of blacks were winning Pulitzer prizes, too.”

According to The News & Observer, Hussman stated his opposition to whether or not the school should hire Hannah-Jones. He says all four emails sent to Dean Susan King, Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, and Vice-Chancellor David Routh last year expressing qualms with Hannah-Jones’ work are words that stand true.

Hussman openly admitted that donors should not impact someone’s employment with the University. Although the truth unmistakably left Hussmans’ lips, he revealed the true intentions of his heart with his pursuit to annihilate Hannah-Jones from the position before she could ever start. Hussman’s subtle attacks against Nikole Hannah-Jones’ well-respected work speaks volumes to the privileges that he possesses.

Many Americans still live under this umbrella where “white is right,” particularly white men. As a white man with significant influence, Hussman hoped he would affect the board of trustees’ decision to award her tenure. Turns out, he was way off base. Hannah-Jones won. Most of all, she won when she declined the offer to sit under his journalism school.

What is Hussman’s actual grievance with Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project? He mentioned countlessly that The 1619 Project is controversial. Can we all be clear that the only reason the project is so controversial for white supremacists and conservatives is that they do not want to discuss the gruesome events of slavery and how it ties into American democracy today? Reporting on slavery events is not bias, impartial, nor opinionated, but honest.

If anything, white historians have been the ones who downplayed slavery due to the guilt of their ancestors.

Work Cited

Attiah, Karen. “Opinion: Nikole Hannah-Jones’s Tenure Is a Victory in a Battle That Shouldn’t Have to Be Fought.” Washington Post, Https://Www.washingtonpost.com/Opinions/2021/07/01/Nikole-Hannah-Jones-Tenure-Victory-Unc/, 1 July 2021, 5:30pm, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/01/nikole-hannah-jones-tenure-victory-unc/.

Drescher, John. “Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Mega-Donor, and the Future of Journalism.” The Assembly, 30 May 2021, www.theassemblync.com/long-form/nikole-hannah-jones-a-mega-donor-and-the-future-of-journalism/.

Murphy, Kate, and Martha Quillin. News and Observer, 1 June 2021, www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article251817638.html.

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