The University of North Carolina has rescinded its offer of a tenured journalism professor position to the author of the New York Times '1619 Project' after an intense backlash. 

Instead, UNC officials confirmed this week that Nikole Hannah-Jones, who won the Pulitzer Prize for the 2019 series which 'reframed' American history to focus on when the first Africans arrived to Virginia as slaves, will join its faculty this summer with a five-year contract. 

That means one of the New York Times's most vaunted reporters who the newspaper has doggedly stood by even as the project has come under withering criticism by historians for its inaccuracies didn't qualify for a permanent appointment. 

The university's Hussman School of Journalism and Media had announced late last month that Hannah-Jones had been tapped for its Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism, a tenured professorship.  

The news was swiftly condemned by conservative political groups with links to the UNC Board of Governors which oversees the state university's 16-campus system, according to NC Policy Watch. 

Among the loudest critics was the The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, which argued that Hannah-Jones is unqualified for the position because her 1619 Project was 'unfactual and biased'. 

The conservative watchdog group said her hiring signaled 'a degradation of journalistic standards, which should deter any serious student from applying to the journalism school'.