Investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, a 2017 MacArthur Genius recipient, will speak at Syracuse University on Thursday night.

Hannah-Jones will speak at the S.I Newhouse School of Public Communications as part of its Leaders in Communication lecture series at 7:30 p.m. in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium. Earlier that afternoon, she’ll deliver the keynote speech about education inequality at the “Fair Housing Turns 50! Protecting Rights in Uncertain Times” conference at the Marriott Syracuse Downtown hotel.

Here are five things to know about the reporter before she makes her appearances in Syracuse.

She’s an investigative reporter covering racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine

Hannah-Jones is the domestic correspondent at the magazine. She investigates the way racial segregation in housing and schools is maintained through official action and policy. She has written about school re-segregation and federal failures to enforce the Fair Housing Act and policing in the United States.

She wrote one of the most widely read analyses of the Fisher v. University of Texas affirmative action Supreme Court case

In 2008, Abigail Fisher, who is white, sued the University of Texas at Austin for racial discrimination after the university rejected her admission. She argued that less-qualified students of color were accepted over her due to the color of their skin. Hannah-Jones proved that Fisher wasn’t qualified enough to be accepted in the first place.

She’s a MacArthur Fellow and has won several national awards

In 2017, Hannah-Jones was named one of 24 recipients of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship — nicknamed the “Genius Grant” — and was awarded $625,000. She has also received The Peabody Award, a George Polk Award, a National Magazine Award, the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service and the Fred. M Hechinger Grand Prize for Distinguished Education Reporting. She was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists in 2015.

She helped found the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting

The Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting is a training and mentorship organization geared toward increasing the number of investigative reporters of color. The organization was created due to a collective frustration of lack of black representation in investigative journalism.

She’s writing a book

The book is titled “The Problem We All Live With” and will examine school segregation. Hannah-Jones has also recorded an hour-long podcast under the same name as the book that aired on radio stations across the country.

Published on November 1, 2017 at 10:07 pm

Contact Rori: rhsachs@syr.edu