Nikole Hannah-Jones declines tenure at UNC, opts to join Howard University faculty

Nikole Hannah-Jones, founder of the controversial 1619 Project, declined the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's offer for tenure and will instead join the faculty of Howard University.

She announced her decision not to join UNC on Tuesday morning, about a week after the university's board of trustees voted 9-4 to grant her request for tenure after she refused to accept the position without it. The reporter would have been named chairwoman in race and investigative journalism at UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

Instead of joining her alma mater, Hannah-Jones accepted the position of Knight chairwoman in race and journalism at Howard University.

"Look what it took to get tenure — so this was a position that since the 1980s came with tenure," she explained during an interview with CBS's Gayle King. "And every other chair before me, who also happened to be white, received that position with tenure. ... I went through the tenure process, and I received the unanimous approval of the faculty to be granted tenure."