The Nikole Hannah-Jones debacle was all manufactured outrage

UNC's offer was acceptable - until the media stepped in

The narrative of the Nikole Hannah-Jones saga that has engulfed the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has been pretty straightforward: Evil Republicans on the Board of Trustees unexpectedly deny the fundamental academic right of tenure to a black female journalist because of politics and racism.

The reality is a lot more complicated.

Reasonable people can disagree about whether the UNC Board of Trustees handled the matter properly. Reasonable people can even debate whether public universities should offer tenure at all.

But the debate over Nikole Hannah-Jones’s application for tenure has been anything but reasonable. If you look closely at the timeline of events, you’ll find that the entire debacle was driven more by a media and faculty hungry to drive a wedge — and an agenda. And you’ll find that Nikole Hannah-Jones was less than forthcoming about what she knew about the situation, and when.

In a statement during this time, Hannah-Jones said: “I had no desire to bring turmoil o…