Durham protesters demand Duke invest more in city and university workers
Ahead of Founders’ Day weekend, roughly 250 people called on Duke University to invest more in the city it’s operated in over a century.
Chants of “Durham builds Duke!” and “Duke: Stand with Durham!” rang down West Main Street on Thursday evening as people marched from St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church to the university’s East Campus and back.
The rally was organized by Durham Rising, a coalition that wants Duke to pay its workers a minimum wage of $25 per hour, build affordable housing, invest in public infrastructure and contribute to Durham Public Schools and educators’ salaries.
Members of the Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW), Siembra, Durham for All, Durham Association of Educators (DAE) and the Duke Graduate Student Union participated.
As 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable nonprofits, Duke and Duke Health are exempt from paying property taxes in Durham. But a university fact sheet says it gives $13.9 million annually in tax-related contributions — close to the $14.3 million it says it would owe if Duke were taxed as a for-profit entity.
The contributions include:
- $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.
Duke’s has helped build over 1,000 affordable housing units over the past two decades and provided $22 million to local financial institutions that provide capital for affordable housing developers, the fact sheet states. The university maintains its own fire safety and police force, waste collection and water and sewer infrastructure — the latter saving the city of Durham $10 million annually.
Duke raised its minimum wage to $18 per hour last year. But workers like Laura Dixon, a biowaste handler at Duke, said at the rally that isn’t enough.
“Even after being with Duke for over a decade, I only get paid $18.37 an hour,” said Dixon, whose starting wage was a little over $8. “That’s not enough to pay the rent and bills in Durham these days.”
The N.C. Budget and Tax Center says in Durham County, two adults in a household of four must make $26 an hour each to meet its 2025 Living Income Standard.
The Durham City Council voted for a budget in June that increased the minimum wage for city employees to $21.90, The N&O reported.
City Council member Nate Baker and mayoral candidate Pablo Friedmann attended the rally. Baker told The N&O that Duke’s figure of what it would owe in taxes, $14.3 million, is out of date because it is tax exempt and the tax assessor’s office has not updated its tax assessment in a long time.
“Imagine if Durham residents or small businesses decided ‘we’re not going to pay property tax anymore, but, you know, we’ll go out into the community and we’ll spend some money the way that we want to,’” Baker said. “Well, we all owe it to the community to contribute to this collective pot. It’s a fundamental part of our society.”
Friedmann said if he’s elected mayor, he’ll call Duke President Vincent Price on day one to talk about how the university can make an annual payment in lieu of taxes of $50 million.
Funding cuts and layoffs
In July, Fox News and The Associated Press reported the Trump administration was freezing $108 million for Duke and Duke Health. The News & Observer could not independently verify those reports.
Duke has yet to comment, but in June, Price told the campus community that federal funding threats would likely force Duke to employ fewer people. In a July email to faculty and staff, the university said it had offered voluntary buyouts to almost 600 employees and would start involuntary layoffs amid cuts to research funding and an increased tax on endowments, The N&O reported.
Working the night shift, Nahshon Blunt, a Duke housekeeper and USSW member, told The N&O he often has to clean multiple buildings in addition to those he’s assigned because his unit is short-staffed. Blunt said in the summer, Duke cut temporary workers in his unit, and he worries there could be more lost jobs.
“So you think about all the overwork that you got to do, we get tired of it,” Blunt said. “And at this point, we are tired. We are burned out.”
Ananda Ghosh, a special education teacher at Sherwood Githens Middle School, said a yearly contribution from Duke could fund instructional assistants in every elementary school and special education classroom. Ghosh, a DAE member, said Duke’s current contribution is not enough — and now is not a time for the university to hide.
“‘I’m not hearing it when they say, ‘oh, Trump’s taking our money,’” Ghosh said. “First of all, stand up and fight. Second of all, you still have that endowment. Stop keeping it in financial instruments. Use it on the community. Stop firing the workers. You have the money.”
This story was originally published September 25, 2025 at 9:53 PM.
.jpg)