Black US journalism professor wins $1m over botched university appointment | Texas

A Black journalism professor who was hired by Texas A&M University before objections in some quarters over her history of promoting diversity foiled the job offer has secured a $1m settlement from the institution.

Kathleen McElroy also received an apology from officials at Texas A&M, the largest public school in the US, who in a statement Thursday acknowledged “mistakes … made during the process”.

In her own statement, McElroy said she would remain in a tenured teaching position at the University of Texas at Austin, and hoped the settlement would “reinforce A&M’s allegiance to excellence in higher education and its commitment to academic freedom and journalism”.

“I will never forget that … students, members, former students and staff voiced support for me from many sectors,” McElroy’s statement also said.

The payment and apology to McElroy all but closed an episode that unfolded as Republican lawmakers across the US eye the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion programs at college campuses. Such programs are in conservatives’ crosshairs after the Republican supermajority on the US supreme court’s bench ruled in June that race-conscious college admissions decisions were unconstitutional.

That court ruling effectively ended affirmative action in the US’s higher education system.

Texas A&M announced in June that it had hired McElroy – a school alum and former New York Times editor – to refurbish its journalism department in June. Hiring McElroy away from a more liberal rival at the University of Texas won the school plaudits from some sectors.

But then, in a July interview with the Texas Tribune, McElroy revealed that she had encountered pushback at Texas A&M because she had previously worked to diversify newsrooms and make them more inclusive.

Documents released Thursday to media organizations including the Associated Press and the local news outlet KVUE showed that six of the school governing board’s members had expressed “concerns” about McElroy after the right-leaning website Texas Scorecard reported on her prior diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Alums and active students had also called and emailed the university president’s office to challenge the hiring of “a DEI proponent … to serve as director of the new journalism program,” said the documents, which summarized Texas A&M’s investigation into the McElroy matter, according to the AP.

Subsequently, as the professor told it, the school president Katherine Banks reduced McElroy’s job offer to a five-year position as opposed to one that was on track to be tenured, which implies certain longer-term employment protections. McElroy told the Tribune that the five-year position – from which she could be fired at any time – was then reduced to a one-year post.

At that point, McElroy rejected the job and indicated that she would stay in her teaching role at the University of Texas at Austin.

Banks maintained she was not involved in modifications to the contract offered to McElroy. Nonetheless, she resigned from the presidency on 21 July, and the Texas A&M board later negotiated a settlement with McElroy.

McElroy was one of two reasons why Texas A&M drew national headlines in July. In a separate case, A&M professor Joy Alonzo was suspended within hours of speaking critically about Texas’s lieutenant governor Dan Patrick during a lecture on the ongoing opioid crisis.

Alonzo’s suspension, along with McElroy’s botched hiring, have prompted concerns among many in higher education that colleges are increasingly clamping down on free speech at campuses in the face of political pressure.

The Associated Press contributed reporting