More than 200 people signed onto an open letter released Tuesday in support of Nikole Hannah-Jones, calling the recent controversy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill part of a "rising tide of suppression" and a "threat to academic freedom."

Hannah-Jones, a UNC-Chapel Hill alumna and a New York Times reporter, was hired in April as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the university's Hussman School of Journalism and Media. She won the Pulitzer, a Peabody Award and a so-called "genius grant" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for "The 1619 Project" about slavery's impact on America.

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The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has funded numerous Knight Chair faculty positions nationwide, and they typically carry tenure. But Hannah-Jones was offered a five-year contract instead, at a salary of $180,000 a year.

The lack of tenure for the position has put a national spotlight on UNC-Chapel Hill.

On Monday the UNC Faculty Executive Committee demanded that the school's Board of Trustees "immediately" consider tenure for Hannah-Jones who is scheduled to start working at the university in July.

The latest letter of support was written by Yale University Professor Glenda Gilmore, a 1992 graduate of UNC, writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Johns Hopkins University Professor Martha Jones. It is co-signed by 238 historians, artists, writers, former UNC athletes and activists.

"We, the undersigned, believe this country stands at a crucial moment that will define the
democratic expression and exchange of ideas for our own and future generations. State
institutions across the country are attempting to ban frank and rigorous conversation
about our history in the classroom," the authors wrote.

Board of Trustees Chairman Richard Stevens said last week that the board didn't deny Hannah-Jones tenure. It merely didn't act on the recommendation because at least one member had questions about her qualifications for a lifetime appointment.

But Mimi Chapman, chairwoman of the Faculty Executive Committee, said Monday that not acting on the Hussman School's recommendation that Hannah-Jones be given tenure was essentially a decision to deny it.

Two other UNC-Chapel Hill faculty members have been named to Knight Chair positions in the past. Chapman said both were tenured, although neither came from an academic background – similar to Hannah-Jones' situation.

"One thing that is different about Ms. Hannah-Jones than those previous chairs is that she writes about something that has become very controversial in the last year, her 1619 Project," Chapman said. "She writes about race in America, and that is something that has become a hot button. It shouldn’t be, not on a college campus. These are issues we talk about all the time.

"You have to raise the question of this is Black woman, and why is she being treated differently?" she continued. "Whether that is intentional, whether it’s more about her work versus her personal identity, I don’t know. And we don’t know because the Board of Trustees won’t take up the case."

In their letter, Coates, Gilmore, Jones and the signatories wrote, "The failure of courage on the part of the Board of Trustees to follow the recommendation of Hannah-Jones’ peers is almost certainly tied to Hannah-Jones’ creation of the 1619 Project."

They cited legislative and other pressures in particular to limit the use of educational materials from the 1619 Project in public schools.

"At risk right now are opportunities for thousands of students across the nation to think more deeply about the year 1619 and the defining role of slavery in U.S. history. Right wing critics, pundits, and politicians have launched a coordinated campaign to suppress this essential historical inquiry," they wrote.

"We decry this rising tide of suppression and the threat to academic freedom that it
embodies."