A double-standard with tenure at UNC?

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Board of Trustees in January balked at awarding tenure to prominent journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones out of concern that she doesn’t have a substantial record of academic work.

But, according to UNC law professors, a lack of scholarly achievement didn’t worry the university’s chief academic officer in March when he proposed offering tenure to a law school dean who doesn’t have a significant record of teaching and writing in legal education.

The professors say that Robert Blouin, the university’s executive vice chancellor and provost, proposed bypassing the normal tenure evaluation process and submitting UNC Law School Dean Martin Brinkley’s tenure application to the Board of Trustees. Brinkley, who was hired as dean in 2015 and had his five-year contract renewed this year, came to the university after practicing corporate law in Raleigh. He is the first law dean to come directly from practice in the modern history of the law school.

The law school professors, who asked not to be identified, said Blouin floated the tenure idea to a stunned group of law professors during a March 31 virtual meeting. The reaction? “Ninety-nine percent of the professors said, ‘That’s just crazy,’ ” said a professor who was at the meeting. He said the provost told them he would reconsider the idea.

Richard Stevens, chair of the board of trustees, said Brinkley has not been awarded tenure. He said the confidentiality of personnel records bars him from discussing whether an application from Brinkley reached the board’s committee that reviews tenure applications.

Blouin could not be reached for comment. UNC media relations said only that “All faculty actions that result in tenure, regardless of academic background or discipline, go through the UNC-Chapel Hill Appointments, Promotion and Tenure Committee.”

Asked whether Brinkley was seeking tenure, a spokeswoman for the UNC School of Law said that, “Information regarding tenure status is considered a personnel matter. Dean Brinkley is unavailable for comment.”

Faculty members generally prefer that their dean, usually a former faculty member, be tenured. The career-long protection from dismissal gives the dean a stronger position in which to advocate for and defend his faculty.

But in Brinkley’s case many on the faculty oppose his being given tenure because he lacks a sufficient academic record of teaching and writing. Granting him tenure by fiat, they said, would undermine the process. How could a law school committee deny tenure in the future for insufficient credentials if it had been awarded to a dean without credentials or a standard review?

This episode is striking in comparison to the treatment of Hannah-Jones’ application for tenure as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media. The position is designed to bring highly accomplished journalists into teaching roles. UNC-CH’s previous Knight Chairs have been appointed with tenure.

Hannah-Jones, who has a master’s degree from UNC, submitted to the tenure review process and was recommended to the Board of Trustees for tenure. Susan King, the journalism school dean, said she was told the board did not act because “the board was worried about a non-academic entering the university with this designation.” Instead, Hannah-Jones has accepted a five-year contract.

The board’s inaction has brought complaints that the real obstacle was conservative opposition to her work in creating “The 1619 Project” at The New York Times Magazine. Her essay as part of the project won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, but the project – an exploration of the role and legacy of slavery in the founding of the United States – has drawn criticism from conservatives and some prominent historians for being, in their eyes, more ideological than historical and marred by factual errors.

Brinkley, a graduate of the UNC law school and a former president of the North Carolina Bar Association, has avoided conflicts with the Board of Governors and has won praise for raising funds for the law school. But mastering the politics of the job and raising money are not the credentials for meriting tenure.

That Brinkley would request tenure and the provost would consider granting it shortly after the university questioned Hannah-Jones academic credentials illustrates the very institutional bias that Hannah-Jones and others have sought to bring to light.

This story was originally published May 25, 2021 at 2:10 PM.