UNC System Under Investigation for Structural Racism
Students protest the tenure decision of Nikole Hannah-Jones during a board of trustees meeting in May 2021. Source: The Assembly
After a long and arduous debate this past Summer over whether or not to grant New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones a tenured faculty position at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is investigating “structural racism” within the UNC System. Their investigation is focused primarily on UNC Chapel Hill, which the AAUP claims “mishandled” the procedure with Hannah-Jones. More broadly, the committee will investigate what it sees as “a pattern of egregious violations of principles of academic governance and persistent structural racism.”
The American Association of University Professors is “a nonprofit membership association of faculty and other academic professionals” which helps “to shape American higher education by developing the standards and procedures that maintain quality in education and academic freedom in this country's colleges and universities.” Within this mission to uphold academic freedom and maintain quality education, the AAUP will also investigate any form of outside political pressure exerted on a university, its board of governors, and the board of trustees. Such external pressure, the committee suspects, may be a result of the “gerrymandered state legislature” and would compromise the integrity of the university institution.
Two professors, Nicholas Fleisher, associate professor of linguistics at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and Afshan Jafar, professor of sociology at Connecticut College, will chair the AAUP committee. The final report is expected in early 2022. It is not clear precisely what the implications of the report will be should it discover violations, but censure is one possibility. Censuring the UNC system would likely turn prospective applicants away to look for jobs elsewhere, which would be especially concerning due to the university’s ongoing difficulty in securing a new Dean for the Hussman School of Journalism and Media. The AAUP website provides a list of prior investigations of a similar nature since 1950, including investigations into McCarthy-era faculty dismissals based on suspected or open membership in the Communist Party, an inquiry into academic freedom and segregation in Mississippi in 1965, and an assessment of risks to academic freedom posed by the nation’s response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The announcement of this investigation and the AAUP’s claim that “a pattern of egregious violations” has occurred is important for UNC-Chapel Hill and other UNC system schools. As this is an independent investigative committee tasked solely with this issue, the potential for more instances of racism in the faculty hiring and tenure process to be uncovered. The administration of UNC-Chapel Hill and the UNC system should take these allegations seriously and work to change the climate in every institution to promote a more fair, transparent, and equal system of hiring and granting tenure, no matter the results of the committee’s report.