On September 14th, around ninety people gathered at Asbury United Methodist Church to launch a campaign urging Duke University to make payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) to local government. The Duke Respect Durham campaign is backed by a coalition of labor and advocacy groups such as UE Local 150, the Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW), the Durham Association of Educators (DAE).
According to the campaign, Duke University would owe an estimated $50 million in annual property taxes without its educational tax-exempt status. The coalition also claims that the university owns 10 percent of land in Durham, making it the city's largest landowner [1]. The school should pay a PILOT, the campaign says, since “Duke University benefits significantly from city and county resources, including public schools, transit, parks, infrastructure, and other public services and facilities.”
Saturday's kickoff event began at 2 p.m. on the lawn of Asbury Church, located just north of Duke East Campus. Durham city councilor Nate Baker, an early backer of Duke Respect Durham, greeted newcomers and directed them to a sign-up table, snacks, and an informational poster about PILOT campaigns.
USSW members in their trademark red shirts mingled with people who just moved to Durham and were looking to get involved in the community. Older community members chatted with young activists from Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Sunrise Movement.
Duke Respect Durham comes in the wake of successful campaigns for PILOT at elite universities across the country. Brown University, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania all currently make voluntary payments of $10 million or more to their local governments. In 2021, a campaign called “Yale Respect New Haven” pressured the university to increase its annual PILOT to $23 million [2].
At 2:30 p.m., the kickoff event moved into the sanctuary of Asbury Church to hear speeches from union leaders, an archivist, local politicians, and others. Bathed in light from stained-glass windows, Duke Respect Durham yard signs sat perched on chairs in front of the altar.
Keith Bullard, a member of USSW, warmed up the audience. “I need everyone to dream really quick”, he said, “What could we do with $50 million dollars?”
A few of the crowd’s proposals were outside the purview of local government, such as a raised minimum wage and universal healthcare. Other suggestions, such as increased funding for Durham Public Schools and Durham Housing Authority, were firmly within the power of city and county authorities.
“If we can get this money, we can do some things with it. We can do the right things with it”, said Donald Quick, treasurer of UE Local 150, “We need this for our city workers. You know, a lot of us can’t afford to live in Durham.”
After COVID struck, the annual raises given to Durham city workers were lower than the inflation rate for three years in a row. Since wages were already low, the real-terms cuts were devastating to the workers and their departments [3]. After conducting a “stand down” action in 2023 and rallying the public, UE Local 150 won a major victory in June 2024 when the city council approved $28.5 million in raises [4]. The union continues to urge that all city workers be paid at least $25 per hour.
A speech by Christy Patterson, vice president of DAE, electrified the crowd in Asbury Church. She recapped the recent issues faced by Durham school employees – a bitter payroll dispute with the school board, loss of staff due to low pay, defunding by state government, and more [5] [6].
The audience roared its approval as Patterson described how DAE fought back in 2024. A major organizing drive lifted union membership from 15 percent to over 50 percent, the second highest of any teacher’s union in the state. Simultaneously, the union challenged a proposed school budget of $13 million. A campaign by DAE sent over 1,000 letters to the county commission and secured a record-high $26 million budget for Durham Public Schools [7].
“The way that we won that budget was we asked the people of Durham to pay up,” said Patterson, in reference to a 4.7 percent property tax increase, “So Duke, it’s your turn. Time is up. Duke, you have skated under the radar for too long and we won’t stand for it no longer!”
Patterson’s thundering address was followed by mild-mannered remarks from J.T. Tabron. He is the county’s Assistant Register of Deeds and also participates in a project called Hacking Into History, which works to uncover Durham’s history of exclusionary housing practices. Tabron pointed out that, given Duke University’s past usage of racially restrictive covenants, a PILOT could serve as a form of reparations for the city's Black community.
“Duke has been the second largest purveyor and user of these restrictive covenants in Durham,” said Tabron, “In Duke Forest alone there are over 300 of these that we have found in the public record filed between the early 1900s and the early 1970s”.
A scanned image of a restrictive covenant appeared on the church screens. The crowd fell silent as Tabron recited the legal clauses used to forbid selling a home to anyone with a single drop of “Negro blood”. The lawyers had made sure to clarify that Black servants were allowed on the premises.
The next image popped on the screen. The photo showed that one of the Duke Forest homes had sold in the 1960s for less than $30,000 but was now worth more than $800,000. Along with other Jim Crow measures, restrictive covenants blocked the accumulation of generational wealth in the Black community.
During his speech, Nate Baker prepared the coalition for the counterarguments that the PILOT campaign would face from Duke University. The city councilor predicted that Duke University would argue that it was a key economic driver for Durham and therefore deserved its tax-exempt status.
Baker responded, “Duke provides some benefits to the community, it’s true. But so do you, so do all of us. Working class people across our city are deeply engaged in making our community better. They run mutual aid groups, community fridges, they donate time and money to important causes … and they also pay property taxes.”
Nida Allam was the final speaker at the September 14th rally. Currently serving as a county commissioner, she is the first Muslim woman ever elected to public office in North Carolina. Allam is a leader of the People’s Alliance faction in Durham politics, which represents an affluent, liberal, and mostly White constituency.
She said, “We need Duke to understand that our residents and our neighbors are stepping up to the plate paying for these [property tax] increases that we need desperately for our students and our families. We need them to come to the table.”
Allam’s speech was the first instance of an influential figure in the People’s Alliance supporting Duke Respect Durham. The campaign hopes that her support is a sign of things to come. City councilor Javiera Caballero and school board member Natalie Beyer, both endorsed by the People’s Alliance, sat at the back of the sanctuary and listened to the speeches. If the PILOT campaign gains momentum, they may be tempted to sign on.
Work Cited
“Homepage.” Duke Respect Durham, www.dukerespectdurham.org.
Rayala, Sai. “City and University Officials Announce Six-year Commitment, Increases to Yale’s Voluntary Contribution.” Yale Daily News, 19 Nov. 2021, www.yaledailynews.com/blog/2021/11/17/city-and-university-officials-announce-six-year-commitment-increases-yales-voluntary-contribution.
Elk, Mike. “Durham Public Works Employees ‘Illegally’ Strike for 1st Time.” Payday Report, 6 Sept. 2023, www.paydayreport.com/durham-public-works-employees-illegally-strike-for-1st-time.
Moore, Mary Helen. “Durham Workers Rally for Better Pay, With City’s Minimum Wage Rising to $19.58 an Hour” News and Observer, 7 June 2024, www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/durham-county/article288952676.html.
Moske, Nina. “Chronology of a Crisis: A Timeline of the DPS Salary Dispute.” IndyWeek, 9 Feb. 2024, indyweek.com/news/durham/chronology-of-a-crisis-a-timeline-of-the-dps-salary-dispute.
Vaughan, Dawn Baumgartner. “NC Senate Passes Bill to Fund Private-school-voucher Backlog, but No New Teacher Raises.” News and Observer, 9 Sept. 2024, www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article292173605.html.
Moore, Mary Helen. “‘Big Win for Our Children’: Durham Budget Will Help Schools Increase Teacher, Staff Pay.” News and Observer, 11 June 2024, www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article289072999.html.
Whenever Duke faces calls to contribute more to local government, as other universities do, someone always says that “Without Duke there’d be no Durham.”
This is backwards.
-Without the generosity of Durham citizens there’d be no Duke University today.
-It was a Durham citizen who saved Trinity College from bankruptcy more than a century ago. (Julian Carr was also a white supremacist who helped fund the white mob in the Wilmington massacre.)
-It was Durham citizens who banded together and donated free land and money to move the struggling rural college to Durham.
-A Durham citizen donated the land under East Campus as a gift.
-Durham citizens pooled money and donated Southgate dorm as a gift.
-It was a Durhamite,…