DURHAM, N.C. — Duke University’s president met Sunday with protesters in their second day occupying his office’s waiting room to demand the firing of three administrators and a $15 minimum wage for all campus workers.
Duke President Richard Brodhead met with demonstrators inside the building that houses his office and those of other top administrators. Nine students have camped in a waiting area outside Brodhead’s office at the school’s main administrative building since Friday afternoon.
University officials told the students they face criminal trespassing charges, academic sanctions or both if they didn’t leave Sunday, university spokesman Michael Schoenfeld said. The sit-in students want amnesty from criminal or academic repercussions, said their spokeswoman, Duke doctoral student Anastasia Karklina.
It’s been about a decade since the administration building was occupied by protesters, Schoenfeld said, but “protests at Duke are neither rare nor identical.”
Photos posted on the Twitter account of the campus newspaper shows graffiti on signs and leaded-glass windows urging Trask’s firing. Other photos posted by the Duke Chronicle show dozens of students chanting or seated on the lawn outside the administration building.
The administrators that protesters want fired include one top executive involved in a dispute with a parking attendant two years ago. A lawsuit filed last month by the contract traffic control officer accuses Duke executive vice president Tallman Trask III of using a racial slur against her.
Trask has said parking attendant Syliva Underwood refused to let him park in his usual spot and stepped in front of his car. He denied making any racial comment.
Campus police investigated Underwood’s allegations two years ago, but she “chose not to pursue her police complaint,” the university said in a statement.
A campus institutional equity office separately investigated the allegation of an uttered racial comment. “This investigation also did not produce sufficient evidence to confirm the allegations,” the statement said.
Duke’s current minimum wage is $12 an hour, compared to the federal and state minimum of $7.50, the statement said. The school is pushing to require companies with which it contracts for campus services to also pay at least $12 an hour, the statement said.
,Duke University’s president met Sunday with protesters in their second day occupying his office’s waiting room to demand the firing of three administrators and a $15 minimum wage for all campus workers.
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