Faculty members at the University of North Carolina Hussman School of Journalism and Media have expressed their dismay that Nikole Hannah-Jones , the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and creator of The 1619 Project , was not given a tenured position at the university.

Forty members of the Hussman Schools faculty released a statement on Medium on Wednesday, writing that they were stunned at the failure to award Hannah-Jones a tenured position. They called the decision concerning and disheartening. Their statement received over 50 additional signatures from professors and Ph.D. candidates at other UNC schools.

UNC announced last month that Hannah-Jones would be joining the school as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism in July. Karen Rundlet, the journalism director at the Knight Foundation, said in the announcement that Knight Chairs are highly-respected news leaders who bring insights about journalism and support elevating it in the academy.

But faculty members at the school are now questioning why the university withheld tenure upon Hannah-Jones appointment, noting that faculty at the journalism school had widely supported The New York Times Magazine reporter receiving a tenured position.

This failure is especially disheartening because it occurred despite the support for Hannah-Joness appointment as a full professor with tenure by the Hussman Dean, Hussman faculty, and university, the statement read.

The faculty also stated that the two Knight chairs who immediately preceded Hannah-Jones received tenure upon their appointment.

The failure to offer Hannah-Jones tenure with her appointment as a Knight chair unfairly moves the goalposts and violates long-standing norms and established processes relating to tenure and promotion at UNC Chapel Hill, the statement added.