The day after President Donald Trump was elected, a palpable sense of shock overcame the campus. Since then, Duke faculty and staff have become far more politically involved.
Compared to the same 323-day period after President Barack Obama’s re-election in 2012, faculty and staff made nearly 10 times more individual donations to political causes in the aftermath of Trump’s victory—870 to 88. The data, which comes from the Center for Responsive Politics, showed that of those 870 donations, just six of them were to Republican candidates or party committees.
David Levi, dean of the School of Law, gave $2,700 to Republican Monty Newman, a candidate for New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District. Levi declined to comment, and the other five Republican donors did not respond to requests for comment.
On the other side, many—including Jane Richardson, James B. Duke professor of biochemistry—said they donated because of Trump’s election and the conditions that led to his victory. Richardson donated $546 to various Democratic causes and candidates.
“Of course it was because of his election. It also has to do with the things that made his election possible. A lot of that is we don’t teach critical thinking anymore,” Richardson said. “Nobody seems to care how unreasonable politicians behave—they don’t get punished for it. The influence and money is a big deal.”
As a scientist, Richardson is particularly troubled by Trump’s relationship with facts.
“That is maybe one of the worst parts of it,” she said. “I’m a scientist and I care about objectivity. You can’t always know the right answer, but sometimes you can really know if it’s the wrong answer.”
Richardson, who donated to pro-Democratic political action committees, gave the bulk of her contributions to Democrat Jon Ossoff, a candidate in the June special election for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District. Ossoff ultimately fell to Republican Karen Handel, but he was one of the largest recipients of Duke faculty support, earning 63 individual contributions for a total of nearly $3,300.
Other top individual recipients included Reps. David Price (D-N.C.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.), who combined to receive $9,900 from Duke faculty and staff.
All but 79 of the 870 donations were small contributions of $100 or less, adding up to nearly $58,000 in total, more than double the amount given after Obama’s election. Nearly a quarter were through ACTBlue, a political action committee that supports Democrats, and 129 donations went to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 323 days of available data following Trump’s election.
But some Duke professors gave much bigger sums of money, including William Eacho, visiting professor of the practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy and former U.S. Ambassador to Austria. Eacho gave $10,000 to the Democratic Party of North Carolina, $5,400 to Beyer, $1,000 to Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.)—also Hillary Clinton’s former vice presidential candidate—and $1,500 to other Democrats including Ossoff.
Eacho said he supports the Democratic Party of North Carolina because it is in “real need,” noting that despite representing half the electorate, the party has been gerrymandered to be a minority of the electorate.
“The simple fact is that in N.C., we do not meet the definition of a democracy,” Eacho wrote in an email. “Our elected representatives do not represent the electorate. We have a situation in N.C. where the legislators—elected officials—select their electorate, rather than the electorate selecting the elected officials.”
A solution to fix the problem, Eacho suggested, would be to restore the right to multi-member congressional districts, with a system of “rank-choice voting” in which voters could rank multiple candidates in order of preference. However this method is currently prohibited by federal law, he said.
Like many of his peers, Eacho did not donate in the same period after Obama’s election.
“I am interested in helping elect more rational political leaders and fewer right wing ideologues,” Eacho wrote.
Others have expressed similar sentiments, including Wayne Miller, associate dean for academic technologies and senior lecturing fellow at the School of Law. Miller donated $17 between ACTBlue and Ossoff, and said he is strongly opposed to Trump’s actions as president. As a volunteer greeter at polling places, he said he has always been politically active but has donated more in the recent times.
“I oppose almost everything [Trump] stands for,” Miller said. “I reject a lot of the stances he takes, I disagree with the way he uses social media. There’s not a lot I like about the way he has occupied the office.”
Not all faculty, however, were drawn to donate solely because of Trump, including Sarah Russell, adjunct instructor of international comparative studies, who donated $35 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
“I am a moderately active Democrat, and have been for many decades. In general, I tend to support Democrats for political office, but I have also, on occasion, been supportive of thoughtful, moderate Republicans,” said Russell, who is also an academic dean in the Academic Advising Center. "So no, I would not say that Trump’s victory has been the impetus for my political involvement entirely.”
Still, a number of Duke employees, like Richardson, were drawn to donate more than usual as a result of the election.
"[The number of donations has been] much more this year, which probably makes me donate less to my other worthy causes rather than politics," Richardson said. "But this seems like a time where it’s really, really important."
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Managing Editor 2018-19, 2019-2020 Features & Investigations Editor
A member of the class of 2020 hailing from San Mateo, Calif., Ben is The Chronicle's Towerview Editor and Investigations Editor. Outside of the Chronicle, he is a public policy major working towards a journalism certificate, has interned at the Tampa Bay Times and NBC News and frequents Pitchforks.