Duke Students Protest for Fourth Amendment Campus and $25 per Hour Living Wage

Image credit: Artivista Karlin

On Thursday, March 5th, around 20 Duke students, workers, and professors organized a rally on Duke’s Bryan Center Plaza to demand that Duke University protect Durham workers and students by becoming a Fourth Amendment campus, and pay their workers a $25 per hour “living wage.” The demonstrators unfurled a massive butterfly and displayed banners reading messages such as “ICE out of Duke! 4th Amendment Campus” and “Duke Rise Up! $25 per Hour Living Wage.”

The rally comes a day after the Duke Student Government Senate advanced a student-led Fourth

Amendment campus referendum co-sponsored by Sunrise Duke, Mi Gente, Beyond Borders, Asian Students Association, and Duke Migrant Roots Media.

According to the referendum petition, by becoming a Fourth Amendment campus, “Duke would implement measures that reduce the risk of unconstitutional entry by federal agents and encourage employees and students to understand their rights in the event of an unexpected visit by federal agents.” A Fourth Amendment campus would require federal agents to show a valid judicial warrant before entering private areas on campus, and have all private areas on campus visibly marked and designated as such.

Leila Zak, an organizer with Duke Beyond Borders, delivered a speech emphasizing the lawlessness and lack of accountability for ICE and CBP agents. She drew attention to the actions of ICE at Columbia University, where they used false pretenses of searching for a missing child to gain entry into private spaces. She said, “We know that no one, regardless of their background, regardless of their status, should have to go to school [or] work... in fear that, just like that, they could lose their place in this country.” CBP agents arrived in Durham on November 8th. Since then, they have detained over 250 individuals across North Carolina.

The president of the Duke chapter of the American Association of University Professors, Emily Rogers, came forward to raise outcry over a disciplinary investigation initiated by Duke toward one of the students present, Artivista Karlin. Back in November, Karlin was unlawfully arrested for photographing a peaceful protest by 30 protestors with the Sunrise Movement that temporarily shut down the ICE Krome Detention Center in Miami, Florida.

Rogers said, “I’m appalled and furious at the disciplinary actions taken against one of my dear former students... What is going on in the disciplinary cases and the silencing of free speech across campus is not normal. It is nuts! It is fascist inculturation, and we must stop it.”

The rally also comes a day after Duke University announced a $20 per hour minimum wage effective July 1st. Brandon Ruffin, a representative and worker leader with the Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW), came forward to speak in support of both a Fourth Amendment campus and a $25 per hour living wage for all Duke employees. He emphasized the $20 per hour minimum wage increase as a direct result of Durham Rising’s advocacy, while expressing it is still not enough to afford to live in the City of Durham.

Ruffin expressed USSW’s deep solidarity and the earnest belief that if some workers are treated unfairly, all are treated unfairly. “We are standing together to demand two important, simple things... number one, a $25 per hour minimum wage, and the protection of our Fourth Amendment rights under the US Constitution here on campus and in workplaces.”

Karlin closed the rally with an energizing speech, declaring “we are on our way to winning a full Fourth Amendment campus here at Duke, and we’re going to do it together, fighting hand in hand – marching hand in hand – to win a better campus for all.”