Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Pultizer Prize-winning journalist, announced on Tuesday that she will be joining as a faculty at Howard University, and said she has declined the offer of tenue and a teaching position at the University of North Carolina. 

Nikole Hannah-Jones, who is the creator of The 1619 Project, made the announcement on “CBS This Morning” on Tuesday. The University of North Carolina lost Nikole after a long and remarkably contentious effort to recruit her.

The Howard University made the announcement on Tuesday, and said Nikole will join as “faculty to help educate the next generation of black journalists.” The school said she, alongside Ta-Nehisi Coates, will also be founding a brand new Center for Journalism and Democracy.

While praising the appointments, Howard University President Wayne AI Frederick called Nikole and Ta-Nehisi “two of today’s most respected and influential journalists.”

The announcement comes after trustees at UNC voted to award tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones. Her tenure was initially denied by the UNC system’s board of trustees and the university wanted to hire her as a professor without the job-protection status. However, the decision was flipped after protests from alumni, faculty, and students.

Nikole, in a statement, said, “We are at a critical juncture in our democracy, and yet our press does not reflect the nation it serves and too often struggles to grasp the danger for our country as we see growing attacks on free speech and the fundamental right to vote.”

“In the storied tradition of the Black press, the Center for Journalism and Democracy will help produce journalists capable of accurately and urgently covering the challenges of our democracy with a clarity, skepticism, rigor and historical dexterity that is too often missing from today’s journalism,” she added.