by grellas on 6/15/19, 7:04 PM with 180 comments
by Chazprime on 6/15/19, 7:24 PM
Without knowing the details of the case, it's hard to determine who's truly at fault here. Even so, given that the dean herself apparently chastised a dissenting staffer who advocated for the bakery (“F* ROGER COPELAND”), it's a bit disconcerting to think that this is someone who is charged with the well-being of every student on campus.
It's one thing to encourage student activism, but if these universities are teaching students to throw empathy, logic and reason to the wind, they are only doing them a disservice.
by grellas on 6/15/19, 8:06 PM
1. The student "protests" erupted the day after the 2016 election results came in, with a corresponding politically inflammatory element at work in the background.
2. The underlying incident involved an underaged black student who attempted to buy a bottle of wine, was refused, and was then found to have 2 other bottles under his coat as he walked out. When the owner's son chased him out, an altercation ensued and, as police arrived, they found the owner's son on the ground being hit and kicked by three persons, including 2 female friends of the shoplifter.
3. I use shoplifter, instead of "alleged shoplifter," because a guilty plea was entered admitting to the crime and also acknowledging that racial profiling had nothing to do with the incident.
4. Protests immediately erupted and were so volatile that the local police chief said he felt he had to call in outside help from a riot squad.
5. The students who did the protests claimed that Gibson's bakery not only had engaged in racial profiling in the particular incident but also that it was a long-time racist presence in the local business community. (Gibson's had been founded in 1880 and was strictly a family owned business, with the business supporting 3 generations of the family at the time of the incident).
6. The Oberlin dean of students (Merideth Raimondo) appears to have joined in the protests directly, shouting through a bullhorn and handing out fliers calling Gibson's racist. She claimed she used the bullhorn for 1 minute only and only to tell the students to observe safety precautions. Multiple other witnesses at the trial claimed she did so for a half hour and that she was a direct participant in the events. The jury obviously did not believe her. Also, she denied that she had handed out any fliers, was contradicted by a local reporter who said she had handed one to him, called that reporter a liar, and (at trial, once under oath) later admitted that he was telling the truth that she had handed him a flier knowing him to be a reporter.
7. The college immediately joined in the affair by terminating its long-term contract with Gibson's. A couple of months later, it reinstated that contract. Then, when the Gibson family filed suit, it terminated the contract permanently.
8. The college took the position that the matter would be dropped if Gibson's dropped the shoplifting charge and if it committed in the future to bring all incidents involving students directly to the college before it got the police involved. Gibson's refused to comply with this condition.
9. Gibson's in turn offered to forego any and all legal claims if the college sent out a mass communication stating that Gibson's had not engaged in racist activity and had no history of being racist. The college declined to do this.
10. Gibson's took a huge financial hit as a result of all this, barely managing to stay in business. It had to lay off all of its 12 employees and the family owners continued to operate the business without salary for 2 years.
11. Gibson's sued the college and its dean of students alleging libel, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and interference with business relations.
12. Throughout the trial, the college took the position that it had done nothing wrong, was only protecting the students' right to free speech, and had no responsibility for what happened. It also took the position that Gibson's was worth no more than $35,000 in total value as a business and that such amount should be the maximum awarded in any damages award.
13. The jury award $11.2 million in compensatory damages, $33 million in punitive damages, and also said that Oberlin had to pay Gibson's attorneys' fees. Under state law, there is a 2x cap on punitive damages (2x times the amount of compensatory damages awarded) and thus the punitive award will be set at $22 million. The judge is still determining the attorneys' fees question. All in all, though, the jury basically slammed Oberlin to the max and also awarded major damages against the dean of students.
14. Oberlin sent a mass email to its alumni association essentially saying that the jury disregarded the clear evidence showing it had done nothing wrong and vowing to fight this through appeal. It also formally announced that it will be filing an appeal.
15. Oberlin has had a long-time "townie" vs. "gownie" culture but this far transcends the small tensions that have historically existed.
William Jacobsen at Legal Insurrection has been on this case in great depth from inception, believing it is a case of major significance concerning college activism run amok. Here is a link to his reporting on the original verdict that contains a ton of links to the prior coverage: https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/06/verdict-jury-awards-gi...
The article here is by Jonathan Turley, a distinguished liberal law scholar, who is pretty critical of Oberlin's handling of the case, as I think most people are.
by surge on 6/15/19, 8:34 PM
Free speech standards in the US requires you have evidence to back up what you're saying if you're going to speak negatively of someone, even more so if you're going to take action against them, colleges should be encouraging that standard and rational thought over emotional reaction.
by bradleyjg on 6/15/19, 7:28 PM
Ironically this is the same root cause for overuse of force by police officers that is alluded to in the article as a problem these university employees were concerned about. Police officers are also far too insulted from consequences and generally keep their jobs even after causing their employers (i.e. us) millions of dollars in lawsuit damages.
The moral of the story is that all institutions should have effective mechanisms for accountability. Insulate employees too much and at least some will surely run amok.
by protomyth on 6/15/19, 7:26 PM
Best coverage was Legal Insurrection since they actually had people in the courtroom: https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/06/oberlin-college-hit-wi... (summary of coverage at bottom of article)
by neilv on 6/15/19, 9:50 PM
by RickJWagner on 6/16/19, 2:02 AM
I'm glad for the damages. I hope this sends a chilling message to universities-- spend your time and efforts on providing the best education possible. Leave toxic politics in the past. Education should be the primary reason for existence, by far.
by insickness on 6/16/19, 12:51 AM
by Nasrudith on 6/15/19, 9:18 PM
by shriphani on 6/16/19, 1:02 AM
Quite amazed that such poor judgement was exercised throughout this incident - from deans and upper level admins no less - how out of touch with reality can someone be?
by hownottowrite on 6/15/19, 8:13 PM
by high_derivative on 6/15/19, 8:19 PM
Especially at elite universities, there is this interesting phenomenon of mostly upper middle class white women from on average the most privileged upbringings in the western hemisphere arriving at a university they (anyone) could only attend by incredible privilege and luck. Yet they arrive fully convinced they have been held back by the patriarchy their entire lives. Same for other groups and their pet causes.
They find no apparent contradiction at being the most privileged of their generation (speaking of Harvard, Oxbridge, Stanford here), yet the smaller and local the cause, the more vicious the activism. Someone they disagree with dare speak on campus? Violence, trauma, discrimination, hate.
Getting arrested for taking off a veil in Iran? Genocide? Consumerism destroying the planet? Yawn.
I often see people on hn saying this is all blown out of proportion and a small vocal minority but when you talk to undergrads these days, you will realize these beliefs are not just a handful of people but carry weight across the student population.
Not least because opposition is shamed into silence. University admins are usually easily cowed submission on these causes, mostly because it does not cost them anything to uninvite/fire someone.
by zuminator on 6/15/19, 8:17 PM
1) The writer breathlessly warns that "campuses across the country" are succumbing to mob rule. How many campuses is that? Sure, we "know" from the internet that this problem is rampant, just like we "know" that other hot-button issues such as shooting of unarmed black teens, the incel movement, anchor babies, etc. have reached epidemic proportions. But in many cases as in this article we have no context as to just how common these problems are. Is this happening at 10 percent of campuses, fifty percent, 1/10 of 1%? Is the trendline up in the past year or just the reporting of it?
2) What about the historical context? Colleges have been hotbeds of protest for hundreds of years. Is it really true that something has fundamentally changed, or does it just seem that way because this time groups that we (ymmv) approve of are on the receiving end of the protests? If the issue is free speech, ought we not also compare historical limits on free speech imposed by governments, college donors and churches? Perhaps students have gained power because some of those prior actors have lost power, and if so, maybe that is not a bad thing. How much free speech did Jews, women and black students have when they weren't even allowed to enroll in certain colleges in the first place? When exactly was the golden age of academic freedom that everybody wants to return to? I have a feeling the answer to that strongly depends on when the respondent happened to attend school.
3) This article also lumps together issues which are linked in only the most nebulous of ways. What is this specific bakery case meant to be an example of? The author states, "Across the country, academics have caused lasting damage to their institutions by failing to stand up to, or actively supporting, extreme demands for speech codes, limits on academic freedom, and tenure changes." But this situation, of Oberlin officials and students protesting a bakery, doesn't seem to fit into any of those categories. Or maybe it's meant to illustrate how "leaders are ceding control to a small group of activist students and faculty members." Huh, who's ceding control to whom? Seems to me the activist students and faculty members <i>are</i> the leaders.
4) In this specific instance, the writer in my opinion fails to adequately cover both sides of the story. Why were the students and faculty so sure that racism took place if that so clearly was not the case, as portrayed here? It appears as if they had ample opportunity to walk back their position but refused to even in the face of potentially ruinous litigation.
5) And if schools are losing verdicts and enrollment right and left, then isn't this a self-correcting problem? The expression goes that you have freedom of speech but not freedom from consequences. Overactivist universities will face oblivion, problem solved. Or perhaps potential students will decide that going to schools that support their social issues is worth the higher tuition and stricter environment. Many religious institutions impose extra restrictions and limit free expression -- some people are okay with that kind of learning environment; as a society we're generally not apoplectic over it.
I'm not denying there are some seeming trends that are seemingly worrisome. I just can't tell, from most of these articles, how truly widespread they are, how deep is their support, how much of the hysteria is media or internet driven, how badly activism affects the overall university experience, and why supposedly large numbers of students and faculty are so strongly in support of them if they are all downside and no benefit.
EDIT: When I started writing my comment there were no other replies. Thank you grellas and others for providing a lot more context than existed in the article itself.
by tc313 on 6/15/19, 7:25 PM
by pessimizer on 6/15/19, 9:27 PM
by thatoneuser on 6/15/19, 9:27 PM
Since when is someone not entitled to protecting their property? He didn't come out shooting a gun, he came out and got jumped. The school said it was racial profiling - even though no one denied it was theft. What side of the story is missing here? More personal testimony that the intervention was racially based? There's just nothing more to the story that could make this balance out.
I think your reluctance to take the facts at face value and instead say "well what if this really was racist" is exactly the indoctrination that schools like this have fostered. It's like back in the day when people did this kind of crap to ruin black businesses and thinking "well what if we don't know the full story behind their behavior?" Sure maybe there was a valid justification for the hateful behavior, but apply the logical razor.
Racism seemed to be getting a lot better about 10 years ago and since then it seems to have taken a turn. Now it's seemingly in vogue to hate on whites. Don't doubt that there are people out there who think that's a good thing, but consider that the next time the pendulum swings it won't still be the same race being targeted. Do we want to have another Jim Crow era in 2030 where we collectively hate blacks like is so popular to do to whites now?
by abbadadda on 6/16/19, 12:13 AM
by thatoneuser on 6/15/19, 9:32 PM
Sounds like you have been indoctrinated by the same hate these colleges are peddling. No not all colleges do this, but 1/10 is too much. These are institutions which should be educating and enlightening, not promoting ignorance of circumstance and leading witch hunts.
by dqpb on 6/15/19, 9:30 PM
by NotSammyHagar on 6/15/19, 9:23 PM