More than 60 protesters showed up at the Carolina Inn Thursday morning to show the UNC Board of Trustees that their decision to deny tenure to acclaimed journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones would not go unnoticed. Members of the NAACP, the UNC Black Caucus, and current and former faculty at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media showed up with signs demanding an explanation for the decision.

“We just had graduation,” says Dawna Jones, the president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP. “We wanted a week to just breathe and decompress, and here comes another thing. And there’ll be another thing after this, unfortunately. That’s why folks aren’t surprised. But it still hurts just as much.”

Hannah-Jones, the creator of the award-winning 1619 Project and a UNC alumna, is the newest faculty member at the Hussman School. She’s also the newest target of the culture wars conservative leaders are waging at the flagship university of the UNC System.

On Wednesday morning, NC Policy Watch broke the story that Hannah-Jones was denied tenure for her new position as Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism. Over the last year, Hannah-Jones has been recommended for tenure by the entire Hussman faculty and the UNC administration, but a vote within the UNC Board of Trustees, the school’s governing body whose members are appointed by the UNC Board of Governors, broke from the recommendations of her future colleagues.

Although Hannah-Jones will still be given a five-year contract with the potential to receive tenure after this period, the decision to deny tenure breaks from the norm. Previous Knight Chairs have been tenured upon their appointment to the position.

UNC Hussman professors penned a letter yesterday to voice their opposition to the decision, saying they were “stunned” by the decision to overrule faculty. Tori Ekstrand, a media law professor, says that faculty have to submit written statements when they deny tenure to another professor.

“What we want here today is explanations in the same way that we are asked for an explanation,” Ekstrand says.

After the protestors filed into the meeting, Student Body President Lamar Richards was sworn into the Board of Trustees by former chief justice and U.S. Senate candidate Cheri Beasley. Protestors cheered as Richards told the board that “the time has come to envision a place that we all can sit at.”

Members of the Undergraduate Executive Office also shared a letter in support of Hannah-Jones. 

Two protesters were escorted out of the meeting after one started singing “we shall not be moved” over Trustees Chair Richard Stevens. By the end of the open session, some protesters were still standing until closed session began.

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