Nikole Hannah-Jones Confronted by Daughter in Stinging New Podcast Interview About Her Education

The fallout from 1619 Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones’ controversial decision to send her only child to a poor-performing New York City public school continued over the weekend.

The Background

On the latest episode of This American Life, the activist and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist was confronted by her daughter, 16-year-old Najya Hannah-Jones, over the education choices that left her struggling to keep up.

In a widely discussed 2016 New York Times Magazine essay, Nikole proudly described her decision to choose a predominantly Black, low-income Brooklyn public school for Najya. Now, in a follow-up essay published earlier this month, Nikole admitted she is “overcome with regret” because her child “deserved better.”

In the new essay, Nikole wrote that she enrolled Najya in algebra tutoring only to learn her daughter had major gaps in elementary school math, including long division and fractions. The tutoring center warned that catching Najya up would require intensive help.

The Confrontation

On This American Life, Nikole stood by her decision to leave Najya enrolled despite the warning signs, arguing it would have been wrong to give her an escape from schools other children could not leave. But Najya rejected the premise that her education should have been the sacrifice.

“Why? It makes no sense,” she implored. “You’re talking about, ‘Oh, I’m just gonna give you the worst just because it’s not fair’… I didn’t ask to be born. All you’re supposed to do is just like put me in a good school.”

Najya went on to question the very argument her mother has been trying to make. “[You’re] like, ‘Oh well, I didn’t want to put you in a great school and have you have advantages over other kids.’ Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that what you want me to have? Is that not a normal thing you want me to have,” she asked.

“Everyone’s not your kid. You can’t save everyone who doesn’t want to be saved,” Najya added. “There’s no benefit that came out of you putting me in those schools. There’s no benefit at all.”

Nikole later let her daughter choose her own high school, and Najya selecting a competitive public school with mostly white and Asian students. Nikole described the choice in her essay as “the exact opposite” of her life’s work.

The Stinging Rebuke

In the podcast interview, the two returned to the question of what the time spent at the failing schools actually accomplished. Nikole likened the virtue signaling to Civil Rights leaders. “We’ve talked about like, over and over, like our lives are the products of people who didn’t just say, ‘We think segregation is wrong, we think injustice is wrong.’ Like ,they were willing to put themselves, their families, their children, on the line for that,” she claimed.

But Najya wasn’t buying it. “So, you put me on the line to help with school, but it didn’t work,” she countered.

“Yeah, I put you on the line, in hopes of even when you making a change, yeah,” Nikole conceded.

In a stinging assessment, Najya posited the only reason she believes she has gotten herself back on track is because she herself chose the right high school: “I think I’m fine because I’m in the school I am now. But I feel like if I picked a different choice that you wanted me to, I don’t think I would be fine.”

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