‘What does Duke owe Durham?’ Rally and talk to critique university’s impact
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Durham groups demand Duke raise wages, support infrastructure investment.
- Petition with 10,000 signatures urges Duke to pay $25 minimum and fund PILOT.
- Critics cite tax breaks, low wages and gentrification from Duke’s expansion.
As Duke University celebrates its founders and benefactors this weekend, a coalition is rallying to honor the workers who built and have supported the school for over 180 years.
On Thursday, hundreds of workers, public school teachers, students and residents marched to Duke’s campus from St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church with a petition demanding the university and its Board of Trustees raise the minimum wage for employees and invest more in the city’s public infrastructure. The petition has gotten about 10,000 signatures so far, according to Durham Rising, a group founded to urge the Duke to invest more in the Bull City.
The rally will be followed by a talk on Friday hosted and sponsored by the Institute for Southern Studies, a media center based in the Bull City, at Durham’s Asbury United Methodist Church. Urbanist Davarian Baldwin, whose book, “In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower,” explores how large universities can sometimes play a “parasitic” role in their communities, will lead the discussion.
“When you see cranes shooting up from a campus, you think prosperity and opportunity. … In some ways, that’s true,” Baldwin said in an interview. “But that prosperity and brilliance comes from extracting wealth, labor, talent, innovation from usually much more impoverished or marginal communities that surround these campuses.”
The long-standing call for Duke to invest in Durham is rooted in its role as the city’s largest, and wealthiest, landowner and its tax-exempt status. The university has a $12 billion endowment and avoids paying tens of millions of dollars in taxes every year. Advocates argue that this exemption places a greater financial burden on residents, who are left to fund essential public services and resources that everyone uses, including Duke students, faculty and alumni.
While Duke University and its hospital are one of the largest employers and medical institutions in the country, low-wage workers make $18 an hour, which is considered less than a livable wage.
“As these campuses expand, neighborhoods that were once affordable to those who might work on the campus, can no longer afford to live in Durham or Chapel Hill,” Baldwin said. “Those that actually underwrite the school, those that clean it and care for it, are left with their noses pressed to the glass of the prosperity that they actually make possible.”
‘What does Duke Owe Durham?’
On Thursday, Duke provided a fact sheet outlining its benefits to the Durham community.
“Duke’s annual tax-related contributions amount to $13.9 million, nearly matching the $14.3 million that would be owed if Duke were fully taxed as a for-profit entity,” according to the fact sheet. The contributions currently total.
• $2.5 million annually in property taxes on non-academic buildings.
• $4 million annually to support emergency medical services and fire protection.
• $7.2 million in property taxes through leased space in commercial developments downtown
The university, which owns 2% of the total land in Durham, also manages its own water and sewer lines on campus, saving the city an estimated $10 million a year in maintenance and repair, and has its own police force and fire safety operation, the fact sheet states.
Duke raised its minimum wage to $18 per hour last year, the latest in a series of increases that boosted its minimum pay from $12 to $13 per hour in 2015, $14 per hour in 2018, $15 per hour in 2019, and $17 in 2022.
The federal and state minimum wages, meanwhile, remain at $7.25 per hour.
“With this pay adjustment, the Duke minimum wage will have increased by 50 percent since 2015,” Antwan Lofton, vice president for Human Resources, said in a news release announcing the latest increase last year. .
But workers like Laura Dixon say Duke could do more.
For nearly 15 years, she has worked at Duke as a biowaste handler. Her duties have expanded to include cleaning the school’s Wellness Center, and she often feels burdened by the extra work.
“I’m really hoping to see a real big change in Duke,” she said. “I think the community of Durham would appreciate [the school] more than they do now.”
Duke University officials did not respond to a request for comment by email Thursday.
Payments in lieu of taxes
Coalitions like Durham Rising and Duke Respect Durham want the university to raise its minimum wage to $25 an hour, let employees form unions, and make payment in lieu of taxes to help further fund community needs like affordable housing, public transportation, and public schools.
Other large universities like Harvard and Brown have made similar investments in their host cities. For example, Yale has made a $23.2 million financial contribution for the past five years to New Haven, Connecticut.
Durham City Councilman Nate Baker, who has worked with the Duke Respect Durham coalition, said the goal of these events is to encourage Duke to be a better neighbor and have a more democratic relationship with the community.
While Duke argues that the university has put money into affordable housing and other resources, Baker said, “it’s nowhere equal to what someone would be paying in property tax.”
“And, it’s on [Duke’s] terms,” he added. “They get to decide where they’re putting their money. We can kind of imagine if residents or small businesses decided they didn’t want to pay into this sort of collective that is our local government and a critical part of the fabric of our community.”
Baker acknowledged that higher education is being attacked by the Trump administration, forcing staffing cuts and hiring freezes.
“To that, I say, everyone is under attack. We all are. Everyone is suffering: public school teachers, nonprofit leaders, artists, service workers, offer workers, everyone and anyone who works for a wage,” Baker said. “So we all really need to be in this together and stick up for one another.”
Baldwin’s Friday discussion, “What Does Duke Owe Durham?,” will examine Duke’s role and impact in the city and the Triangle. As a professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, Baldwin said he loves universities for what they offer a community but believes in calling them out for failing their missions “to solve the world’s most dire conditions and the most central problems.”
“Especially in the current moment where higher education is under fire, we are our best solution,” he said. “The way we move forward is by community building.”
Friday’s discussion will be held at Asbury United Methodist Church at 806 Clarendon St. in Durham from 2 to 3 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
This story was originally published September 25, 2025 at 11:22 AM with the headline "‘What does Duke owe Durham?’ Rally and talk to critique university’s impact."