INC NEWS - Column: Community perspective on Duke's Central Campus (today's Chronicle)

[John Schelp]

"How does using tax-free money to fund businesses that
compete with the local economy, serve the mission of
education?"
-Tom Clark, Trinity 1973


Column: Community perspective on Central Campus
Duke Chronicle, 11 April 2005

I am a Duke grad, fan, neighbor and 35-year resident
of Durham.  And I guess Andrew Collins (Chronicle,
4/05,) would say I am a "longhair" as well. (Except as
noted, all quotes below are from that 4/05 column.)

Actually, he and I agree on a lot:  I too am proud of
many things about Duke, all that he listed and a few
more.  And it looks like we agree on History's
fundamental mechanism for social change:  He says
"longhairs" like me should stay around to keep folks
like him awake.  I'd say various "longhairs" -- Moses,
Jesus, ML King, to name just the obvious examples --
agitate for what’s right, and sometime later -- years,
sometimes centuries, sometimes millennia -- after many
more or less bloody battles, the powers that be
finally come up with appropriate operational rulesets.
 But who's to quibble about the words?

However, for the current subject of "town/gown"
economic relations, the issue is not some game of "who
do you trust" based on who you think is generally the
more admirable player, as Mr. Collins suggests.  The
real issue is paying your fair share.   The fact is
that Duke has discovered a goose laying golden-eggs: 
Because of society’s regard for education as embodied
in the policy of tax-exemptions for educational
institutions, Duke raises millions, even billions of
dollars on which they pay no taxes.   

They then insist on retaining the right to use every
last one of those dollars as potential investment
capital to make even more money, supposedly in support
of the educational mission.  No one is arguing that
Duke doesn’t carry out its educational mission at
least reasonably well, or that the pride some of us
have for the Duke name is not well earned.  But how
does using tax-free money to fund businesses that
compete with the local economy, serve the mission of
education?  The only answer to that is some belief
that Duke students are better educated by having as
little to do with Durham as possible.

For two years or more, the Duke-Durham Partnership
neighborhoods have worked hard with Duke to support
re-zonings for various Duke projects. For the Central
Campus renovation in particular, we worked with Duke
officials on a specific list of projects acceptable to
all as compatible with an educational mission: 
Restaurants, a performing arts center, a 99-room
hotel, a bowling alley, an on-campus book store with
coffee shop, and others. The partnership neighborhoods
voted explicitly to support these uses. Duke then
requested that we further approve re-zoning for other
looming construction projects. And we did it.

These are not the behaviors of "intransigent anti-Duke
zealots."  True, some of us keep insisting that Duke
treat the community in which it lives as a true
partner.  This insistence doesn’t make us moral
leaders along the lines of the "longhairs" mentioned
above.  It makes us citizens trying to deal with the
reality of having what amounts to a Fortune 500
company in its neighborhood that pays no taxes.  And
not only pays no taxes, but demands nearly absolute
control over how, when, and even if it contributes to
the burgeoning needs of the local community.

In fact, though clearly related, the Central Campus
re-zoning issue doesn’t even get to the notion of
"fair share." It is beyond the scope of this article
to give that concept it’s full due.  

Suffice to say that at Yale, a formal "Fair Share"
movement has determined that for the cost of about two
days worth of interest on their endowment per year,
that university could pay New Haven what it would owe
in taxes if it were a "real" business (see
http://www.yaleuoc.com/fairshare.html).  Whatever the
analogous figure for Duke is, they could come to the
table with City of Durham as a partner, instead of a
dictator if they would use a small portion of their
riches, gotten with tax-advantaged privileges, to take
some true leadership on this question.

For here and now, the issue comes down to Duke
declaring they won’t seek a "general commercial"
zoning, for the Central Campus project.  Instead, they
could accept what the Partnership Neighborhoods agree
is the appropriate "University-College" designation. 
This small step is all Duke would have to do to ease
these current tensions, and continue down the
sentimental path that they have Mr. Collins on.  I
believe they resist taking that step as a show of
political force.  Win or lose on this particular
zoning issue, they make the point with everyone that
when it comes to dealing with the local community,
they are only bound by their "fiduciary duty," as John
Burness puts it, a duty that turns all Duke assets
into potential investment capital for further
profiteering.

I’m not here to deny Duke’s record of useful community
involvement.  But Duke doesn't have to be "actually
antagonistic" toward Durham to have an unnecessarily
negative impact. Refusing to contribute taxes and, at
the same time, as a matter of policy -- never mind
"duty" -- always placing Durham's concerns second to
its own economic bottom line is a recipe for such
impact.  Such policies have the effect of Duke viewing
itself as wholly separate from Durham, dictating to
it, as opposed to being an integral part of it, and
truly leading.



Tom Clark, T’73, is a long-time community activist. 
More on the perspective of the neighborhoods can be
found at http://www.owdna.org/duke.htm.