Ida B. Wells Society moves from UNC-Chapel Hill to Morehouse College

This article was originally published online at NC Policy Watch.

The Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Journalism is relocating from UNC-Chapel Hill to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

Named after a pioneering black investigative journalist, the association is dedicated to growing and retaining reporters and editors of color in the field of investigative reporting and promoting diverse voices in the press. Headquartered in UNC Chapel Hill since Fall 2019. He was based at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York before moving to the Shorenstein Center at Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2018 and UNC Chapel Hill in 2018. later.

The move comes after a controversy over the university’s board of trustees denied a tenure vote to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicole Hannah Jones, one of the association’s founders, after seeking to join the faculty. Done.Story first reported by policy watch, generated international headlines. Strong pressure from students, faculty, alumni, and top journalists in the nation to his name led to a lifetime vote on the university’s board of directors. The board eventually suggested her tenure, but Hannah-Jones decided to take her place at Howard University. So, with award-winning journalist Tanahishi Coates, she founded a new Center for Democracy and Journalism inside what was once the nation’s most prestigious historically black university (HBCU). .

The university settled with Hannah Jones last year.

“We are very pleased to announce that Morehouse College will be the new home of the Ida B. Wells Society,” Hannah Jones said in a statement issued by Morehouse. “This partnership will help our young organization go deeper into our mission to increase the number of investigative reporters of color. Located on the campus of , coming to Morehouse, where our journalism major has just taken off, provides us with a tremendous opportunity to increase our impact in the field and society.”

The Society, now based on the Morehouse campus, will join Hannah Jones and award-winning AP reporter and co-founder Ron Nixon in a ceremony on Thursday, Feb. 16, to share more of Morehouse’s journalism. Officially launched with students. , faculty, and staff.

In an email to faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism, Dean Raul Reis said the school has been grateful for the opportunity to work with the community since 2019.

“Carolina is committed to an inclusive and equitable community for all,” Reiss said in an email Thursday. I am praying.”

Last year, the Accreditation Council for the Education of Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC) demoted the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC Chapel Hill to “provisional” status, indicating that the school had reached its standards for diversity, equity, and inclusion. I decided not. He was given two years to settle the matter before the school officially lost its accreditation.