University Accused of Holding Funds Hostage After 1619 Project Spat

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has allegedly stalled forking over millions in academic funding that would have helped journalists of color after a spat over New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones’ 1619 Project.

The Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting says UNC-Chapel Hill has slacked in transferring the organization’s $3.8 million to its new home at Morehouse College, NC Newsline reported Monday. According to the outlet, the society, which funds summer internships for journalists of color, opted to move its organization from UNC-Chapel Hill to Morehouse in December after Hannah-Jones, one of its co-founders and the Black creator of The 1619 Project, declined a job as a faculty chair because she was not initially offered tenure, unlike the chairs before her who were white. Yet, five months after the move, the society says it’s still waiting for its funding to be relocated.

“This is all of our funding,” Hannah-Jones told NC Newsline. “Without it, we can’t work toward our mission, we can’t do any of our work.”

The Ida B. Wells Society expected the transfer to be complete well before summer. But due to the funding delay, the society has had to cancel its summer internship program for college students and a separate program for high schoolers.

According to NC Newsline, the transfer to Morehouse, a Historically Black College and University, began in January, and $1.1 million was moved by the end of the month. However, the Ida B. Wells Society said communication and transfers then stopped, so society co-founder Topher Sanders contacted UNC-Chapel Hill for an update in May.

“Right now, we are walled-off from our funds for an unknown reason,” Sanders wrote to UNC-Chapel Hill Dean of Journalism Raul Reis in an email obtained by NC Newsline. “Our organization cannot do any of its vital and important work because UNC is holding The Society’s money.”

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Sanders complained that the lack of communication was “incredibly unprofessional.”

As soon as the group told UNC-Chapel Hill they were going to publicly announce the delay, the university immediately resumed sending money on May 12, NC Newsline reported.

Hannah-Jones said the society’s leaders were happy to see some progress, but were disheartened that they had to cancel summer programs.

“These are such great opportunities for these young journalists,” she told NC Newsline. “And they’re just gone. This didn’t have to happen.”

She said the transfer process “typically takes a few weeks.”

“We’d never seen anything like this before,” she said.

But UNC-Chapel Hill wrote in an email to The Daily Beast that the university has “worked to ensure that all funds designated to support the Ida B. Wells Society are transferred as expeditiously as possible while also following the gift agreements with each funder and applicable law.”

“We have completed the transfer of nearly $2.1M in funds to date,” the media relations team said. “We are working with Morehouse College and the relevant funding agencies on the process for the remaining fund transfers.”

The Ida B. Wells Society, named after the trailblazing investigative journalist and civil rights activist, was created at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York in 2016. In 2018, it moved to the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, and then to UNC-Chapel Hill until 2023, when controversy arose over whether or not the university would offer Hannah-Jones tenure.

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The UNC-Chapel Hill board of trustees initially offered her a five-year contract, unlike white predecessors who received tenure. Hannah-Jones’ legal team said it was retaliation for the 1619 Project and the conversations around critical race theory in classrooms that it generated.

According to The 19th, Walter Hussman, a major donor after whom the journalism school is named, took issue with some of the 1619 Project, which analyzed how Black racism and enslavement continue to be systemic. Hussman was concerned that the school would be more aligned with critical race theory than his ideas of journalism, according to The Daily Tar Heel.

As of last week, NC Newsline reported UNC-Chapel Hill still owed the Ida B. Wells Society $1.1 million.

UNC-Chapel Hill told The Daily Beast that the processes for moving money through various gifting organizations can be “time consuming.”

Morehouse College said it did not have any comment on the matter, and representatives for the Ida B. Wells Society did not immediately return The Daily Beast’s requests for comment Monday.