Editor's note: This story is part of a series based on a survey of Duke faculty conducted by The Chronicle from April 8 to 19. You can read more about our methodology and limitations here, or read all of our survey coverage here.
For its first year, The Chronicle surveyed Duke faculty members about their thoughts on the Israel-Hamas war.
Faculty members generally responded that the U.S. was doing “too much” to provide military aid to Israel, and an overwhelming majority responded that the U.S. was doing “too little” to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
The sample of seven Muslim faculty members surveyed were consistently more likely to believe that the state of discourse on campus was unhealthy and generally thought the range of opinions on the Israel-Hamas war that could be expressed publicly on campus was somewhat or very narrow.
The sample of 66 Jewish faculty surveyed were more likely to say that the state of discourse on campus is healthy and were generally evenly distributed across the range of opinions on the Israel-Hamas war that they believed could be expressed publicly on campus.
Background
By April 15, 33,843 Palestinians had been killed by bombings, starvation and other causes linked to Israel’s military actions and military blockade. As of Oct. 23, over 42,700 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
At the time the survey was conducted, 96 hostages captured during the Oct. 7 attacks remained in Gaza, and 33 were confirmed dead. Now, according to Israeli authorities, there are believed to be over 60 living hostages and the bodies of 35 hostages in Gaza, with 117 hostages released since Oct. 7, 2023.
The U.S. response to the Israel-Hamas war has starkly divided public opinion and spawned numerous campus protests and demonstrations on college campuses across the country, including at Duke. In February, Provost Alec Gallimore announced the Provost’s Initiative on the Middle East, which seeks to foster constructive discourse about the war on campus. The initiative spawned out of discussions with faculty and students and continues to receive input from a faculty working group and other community members.
Faculty members generally believed the U.S. was doing too much to send military aid to Israel and not enough to send humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
Of all faculty respondents, 44.97% believed that the U.S. was doing “too much” to provide military aid to Israel, 29.25% responded “right amount,” 9.28% responded “not enough” and 16.49% responded “no opinion.” Meanwhile, 3.74% of respondents believed the U.S. was doing “too much” to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians, 19.85% responded “right amount,” 61.98% responded “not enough” and 14.43% with “no opinion.”
The results of a November Gallup poll, which asked the same questions to Americans nationwide, differ from how Duke faculty members responded. A larger proportion of Duke faculty members responded that the U.S. was doing “too much” to provide military aid to Israel. Gallup found that only 31% of Americans thought it was “too much,” 42% thought it was “right amount,” 25% thought it was “not enough” and 3% had “no opinion.”
A much smaller proportion of Duke faculty members also responded that the U.S. was doing “too much” to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. Gallup found that 22% of Americans thought it was “too much,” 34% thought it was the “right amount,” 40% thought it was “not enough” and 5% had “no opinion.”
It is important to note that the Gallup poll was taken over four months before the faculty survey, and national opinions could have changed as the war developed within that time frame.
Faculty members who believed that the U.S. was doing too much to send military aid to Israel were more likely to answer that the U.S. was not doing enough to provide humanitarian aid for Palestinians. 84.93% of respondents who answered that the U.S. was doing too much to send military aid to Israel also answered that the U.S. was not doing enough to provide humanitarian aid for Palestinians, while only 36.11% who believed the U.S. was doing not enough to send military aid to Israel answered the same way.
The distribution of these opinions generally fell along political lines — faculty respondents who were more conservative were more likely to believe that the U.S. was not doing enough to provide military aid to Israel and was doing too much to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians. In fact, 15 of the 29 respondents who answered that the U.S. was sending “too much” humanitarian aid to Palestinians were “very conservative,” and an additional 5 identified as “somewhat conservative.”
Meanwhile, 62.78% of “very liberal” respondents and 53.18% of “somewhat liberal” respondents believed that the U.S. was sending too much military aid to Israel. Around 80.56% of “very liberal” respondents and 74.58% of “somewhat liberal” respondents believed that the U.S. was doing “not enough” to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
All seven respondents who identified as Muslims believed that the U.S. was not doing enough to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians, and six of the seven Muslim respondents believed that the U.S. was doing too much to provide military aid for Israel. This may be affected by the small sample size of Muslim respondents.
Of the Jewish respondents, 21.21% believed that the U.S. was doing too much to provide military aid to Israel, 50% believed that it was doing the “right amount,” 21.21% believed it was doing “not enough” and 7.58% answered “no opinion.” Half of the Jewish respondents reported that the U.S. was doing “not enough” to provide humanitarian aid for Palestinians, 37.88% answered that it was doing the “right amount,” 7.58% believed that it was doing “too much” and 4.55% answered “no opinion.”
You can view additional disaggregations by race, gender, political identification, school affiliation, Trinity field and department, gender and political identification, and race and political identification for the question on U.S. military aid to Israel on Tableau.
You can also view the same disaggregations for U.S. humanitarian aid for Palestinians on Tableau: race and gender, political identification, school affiliation, Trinity field and department, gender and political identification and race and political identification.
Faculty members who believe that the U.S. is doing “too much” to send aid to Palestinians and Muslim respondents were more likely to report that the range of acceptable views on the Israel-Hamas war is narrow.
Of all faculty respondents, 6.7% of respondents reported that the range of views on the Israel-Hamas war that can be publicly expressed within the Duke community was “very wide,” 14.69% reported that it was “wide,” 32.73% answered that it was “medium,” 27.58% that it was “somewhat narrow” and 18.3% that it was “very narrow.”
While the distribution of views among faculty members who answered that the U.S. was doing the “right amount” or “not enough” to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians or answered “no opinion” was roughly the same, the responses from those who felt the U.S. was doing “too much” were different. Only one out of the 29 respondents who answered this way believed that the range of views on the Israel-Hamas war was “wide,” compared to around 20% of faculty members in each of the other categories who believed it was “wide” or “very wide.”
Six of the seven Muslim respondents believed that the range of acceptable opinions was either somewhat narrow or very narrow, although this is likely affected by the small sample size. Jewish faculty members were most likely to believe that the range of opinions on the war was wide or very wide (28.79%), followed by agnostics (25.7%) and atheists (25.37%).
You can view additional disaggregations by race and gender, political identification, tenure status, school affiliation, Trinity field, gender and political identification and race and political identification on Tableau.
Faculty members who believe the U.S. is doing too much to send aid to Palestinians and “very” conservative faculty were much more likely to believe the state of discourse surrounding the Israel-Hamas war on campus is unhealthy. This was not the case for faculty members who identified as “somewhat” conservative.
Two in three of the respondents who answered that the U.S. is doing not enough to send military aid to Israel answered that the state of discourse surrounding the Israel-Hamas war on campus was “somewhat” or “very unhealthy.” Among the 29 faculty members who answered that the U.S. was doing “too much” to send humanitarian aid to Palestinians, only one answered that the state of discourse on the war was “somewhat” healthy.
Even though the distribution of views on campus discourse was largely the same across liberal, moderate and somewhat conservative views, “very conservative” faculty were much less likely to believe that campus climate relating to the Israel-Hamas war was healthy. Only one out of the 30 very conservative faculty members answered that discourse was “somewhat healthy.” About 76.67% of very conservative respondents responded that campus discourse was “somewhat” or “very” unhealthy, even as 41.56% of “somewhat” conservative members answered the same way.
Muslim respondents were less likely to believe that the state of discourse surrounding the Israel-Hamas war was healthy compared to respondents of different faiths. They reported feeling uncomfortable expressing their views on the Israel-Hamas war with administrators, colleagues and students alike.
Six of the seven Muslim respondents reported that campus discourse on the Israel-Hamas war was “somewhat” or “very unhealthy.” Christian Protestants were the most likely to report that the discourse on the war was “very” or “somewhat” healthy (26.19%), followed by Jewish respondents (24.24%) and atheists (23.13%).
You can view additional disaggregations by race and gender, tenure status, school affiliation, Trinity field, gender and political identification and race and political identification on Tableau.
We also asked faculty members to rank their comfort level expressing their opinions on the war with administrators, colleagues and students, each on a scale of 1 to 10. A rating of 1 represented “not comfortable at all,” while a rating of 10 represented “extremely comfortable.”
Interpretation of faculty members’ comfort levels when discussing the Israel-Hamas war with students should be approached with caution. In some cases, it may be more appropriate for faculty to self-censor their opinions on contentious topics, allowing students the space to form their own views.
The mean rating for faculty members was 4.06 when speaking with administrators, 4.82 when speaking with colleagues and 3.74 when speaking with students. The median rating for faculty members was 3 when speaking with administrators, 5 when speaking with colleagues and 3 when speaking with students.
Muslim faculty members were among the least likely to express comfort with speaking with students, colleagues and administrators alike, with median scores of 2 across the board. They reported feeling more comfortable speaking about Duke’s emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and affirmative action compared to the Israel-Hamas war.
You can view additional disaggregations by race and gender, political identification, tenure status, school affiliation, gender and political identity, race and political identity and Trinity field on Tableau.
Faculty members were unlikely to express a view on the Israel-Hamas war that differed from their actual view.
We asked faculty members how often they expressed a view on the Israel-Hamas war that differs from their actual view during the 2023-24 academic year. Most respondents — 80.67% — said they never did. About 12.5% said “rarely,” 5.41% said “sometimes” and 1.42% said “very often.”
However, the interpretation of this question should be taken with caution, as the phrasing may have inadvertently introduced ambiguity, potentially influencing the reliability and validity of the data. Although the intent was to address preference falsification — when individuals hide their genuine opinions due to social pressure — respondents might have seen it as a question about exploring different perspectives, where sharing alternative views doesn’t necessarily mean hiding their actual beliefs.
You can view additional disaggregations by race and gender, religion, political identification, tenure status, school affiliation and Trinity field on Tableau.
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Audrey Wang is a Trinity senior and data editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume. She was previously editor-in-chief for Volume 119.