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.
Remember: throwing the book at black shoplifters vs slaps on the wrist for white is definitely a key feature of racism.
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.
In a move of awesome stupidity, that email was sent out while the case was still in court - just prior to the jury deliberating on the punitive damages.
2-3: I don't know that it's been well established that the student who sparked this incident and later pled out to shoplifting went into the store with the intent to steal. The other narrative presented is that he went in with a fake ID (so clearly had purchasing intent), the ID was spotted, the clerk attempted to confiscate it, and that's when things blew up. It appears undisputed that the student fled the store and was chased by Allyn Gibson, unfortunately resulting in Gibson getting beat down by the student and two friends --- the result was a felony robbery charge, at which point the student had immense incentive to plead out to anything the court would allow him to.
4: It's useful to know that there's a history of problematic interactions between Oberlin (the school) and the Oberlin Police (an unrelated department of the town in which Oberlin resides). That OPD felt the need to escalate a situation isn't dispositive. What we do seem to know is that, excepting an early incident where protesters entered Gibsons Bakery to protest indoors (and then left), the protests were not violent.
7: Oberlin didn't have a contract with Gibsons. They asked their cafeteria supplier to stop sourcing from Gibsons.
12: It's worth pointing out that the college didn't merely take the position that it had done nothing wrong, but also repeatedly in its own legal filings affirmatively supported the protesters claims --- apparently false --- that Allyn Gibson had "violently assaults" an "unarmed student".
Finally: I too have found Legal Insurrection's coverage of this case valuable, but anyone reading it should go in knowing that unlike Turley, L.I. is not "liberal", but rather full-throated conservative. It's always good to keep the agendas of news sources in mind, and that of course goes for L.I. the same way it would for DailyKos or PopeHat.
I think if Oberlin had been smart enough to redirect protest energy towards the Oberlin Police rather than to a private business, this all would have worked out better (and also, not for nothing, have been more just). As it stands, though, I'm shocked Raimondo still has a job; Oberlin's handling of the case was far more clownish than one could perceive from this summary.
Another note or two:
1. Damages might be reduced on appeal but, if not, this will really sting for Oberlin. Why?
2. Its insurer apparently is denying coverage because the wrongs committed were intentional and that removes them from coverage.
3. The legal fee award approved by the jury is likely tied to a contingent fee arrangement and will likely add as much as $10 million to the final price tag.
Bottom line for the risk to Oberlin: $11.4 million compensatory damages; $22.8 million punitive damages; $10 million attorneys' fees = $44.2 million judgment, an astounding number for something the college could easily have quelled at or near inception for almost nothing. Again, this could be reversed or modified on appeal but who in the world would want to be fighting from that position?
On top of theft at that.
Reading this, I'm struck by how fragile our first amendment is that you can be sued for participating in a protest. It sounds like the only things that the university did "wrong" was end a contract and also one of their deans took active part in protesting.
Much of the glee seems to stem from the fact that the speech being expressed in the protest was dumb. I, for one, think dumb speech should be protected.
There was also a link to another article laying out the evidence of collusion by school administrators to do economic harm to the owners of the bakery. Do you defend that behavior as well?
Two points @grellas mentioned are key.
First, this case involves falsehoods. Factually untrue assertions are generally outside the scope of protected speech: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/lying.h.... (Otherwise, the first amendment would swallow claims for fraud, false advertising, etc). This case, moreover, doesn’t fit the scenarios where false statements can be protected expression, such as hyperbole or satire.
Second, the speech was against a private party. The first amendment restrictions on defamation claims are less stringent when it comes to private parties than to the government, politicians, or public figures. In particular, where defamatory speech turns out to be false, it might still be protected by the first amendment if it was directed to a public figure and the false statements were not made recklessly or knowingly. But if a private party is involved, that additional layer of protection doesn’t exist. (The theory being that there is a greater interest on making statements about public figures, where sometimes you might get the facts wrong, than with private figures.)
I’m a first amendment extremist, but a defamation claim here doesn’t strike me as problematic any more than a prosecution for fraud. There is no legitimate expressive value in spreading demonstrable falsehoods about a private party. Nor is there a slippery slope. The key elements of private party versus public figure, and demonstrably false versus possibly true statements are bright line limits that have long served us well.
If that doesn't qualify as libel, what does? That it was done as part of a protest is orthogonal.
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.
You're free to speak negatively of people, you just can't damage someone's reputation by spreading false facts. I'm allowed to call my neighbor a poopyhead or the like, but I can't tell people that he sexually molests children.
Debate is fine, lively discussion is fine, talking negatively about people is fine. What crosses the line is when you go after someone's livelihood or ability to live in peace. That's really what this case is about - Oberlin college administrators got into a disagreement with a local bakery, so they tried to use their clout and influence to run them out of business. Juries really do not approve of that sort of behavior.
I just want to point out that I'm tickled by the fact that I made a point with the exact same term upthread, a moment before coming across your comment. I like your style
"Racist" is more in the category of the former than the latter. The "assault" allegation in the flier handed out, in part, by a dean is admittedly more of a gray area than either of your examples.
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.
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)
i wonder if it's the strain of opposition that sees it as zero-sum and resists (i.e., "if things get fairer for the disadvantaged, then i, as an advantaged person, must necessarily lose something")?
or the strain that resists social normalization (e.g., i should be free to offend and belittle others)?
or something else?
even if everyone gains from growing the pie, the desire for relative status seems more powerful than our desire for fairness and equality unfortunately.
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.
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?
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/the-evergree...
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.
This may have to do with the student population because I teach undergrads at a community college and I have recently taught at a liberal arts college and find this really is blown out of proportion. When I try to talk to them about media literacy most (not all of course but most) say they never read the news and don't follow current events.
>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.
This is probably because they feel they can have an impact on local causes but can't do anything about international issues. What are they supposed to do about genocide in another country?
If you exalt a local event like the one in the original post (an arrest for a theft), or a speaker from the opposite political spectrum to terms like 'violence, hate speech, traumatizing' (words you will find in student newspapers and activism here), what is left for real events of actual drastic impact to society and the lives of others?
This kind of activism is a concept inflation that is tearing societies apart from both ends. An interesting article on this:
https://quillette.com/2019/02/14/the-boy-who-inflated-the-co...
If we are being charitable, perhaps this is because the more privileged students have fewer repercussions from society to fear?
Otherwise it's hard to decide how much weight to give your generalizations.
Maybe at small liberal arts colleges or less elite institutions your viewpoint might be true, but I can't speak for that.
Now, with students born after 2000 and having grown up fully immersed in social media being on campus, what would have been relatively niche wokeness in 2010 is 'common sense' for many. Including extremely low tolerance for view point diversity.
Just picturing someone walking into a large cement plan for an interview. "Why yes, I do believe I can pull this company into the black within 3 quarters. As you see I have a degree from Oberlin college...".
Point being, graduating from there seems it could be not a positive signal but rather a huge red flag for any company engaged in productive pursuits.
Like the person has been pre-trained to be aggrieved and look for issues and possibly sue over the smallest of slights. At least that's what would cross my mind as an interviewer.
This does not have to be a contradiction.
1. If you come from a wealthy family, attending a prestigious university might be par for the course instead of an incredible privilege; you can still be "held back by the patriarchy" (no sarcasm intended). The two things can work in orthogonal ways.
2. They might realize they are privileged and are leveraging their position in an attempt to help others up, i.e. by raising/forcing awareness, a valid thing to do. Feminists aren't the only ones to do it.
I perceive these two points to be common themes in "The Guilty Feminist" podcast I like to listen to.
You compare people from similar socio-economic backgrounds. You don't compare dissimilar groups.
Those women are being held back when you compare to their brothers.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/aug/28/university...
Are you really trying to say that the Harvard-Stanford-Oxbridge woman is held back compared to, say, the plumber's son (no offence, a highly useful profession, but you will find few of their children at these unis)?
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.
> The writer breathlessly warns that "campuses across the country" are succumbing to mob rule.
And this is the actual sentence from the article from which you took the quote:
> As on other campuses across the country, these protests are encouraged by an array of faculty members and ever accommodating administrators.
Not exactly a fair paraphrase. And I found the article's tone quite level; hardly 'breathless'.
You find literally comparing this court case to a nuclear meltdown "level"? I tend to agree with the OP here, this takes an egregious case at a notoriously liberal school and then generalizes it to "across the country" as a clear and present danger. Oberlin was obviously in the wrong here and is being sharply punished for it, so it seems that the system is working.
You’re right, and the voices of young people have sometimes made actual, positive changes to the world… look at Tiananmen Square, Kent State, Occupy Wall Street or the 1964 Berkeley protests (just off the top of my head).
It’s not who the recipients are that’s the problem, it’s that this protest appears to be predicated on a lie, and that destroying these people’s livelihood was not even a consideration to the school’s administration... that’s the problem. There’s no nobility in this kind of protest, and it will not make our world a better place to live in.
And does it matter how many times this has happened to become worrisome? This kind of activism is cropping up all over the place (social media, news, entertainment) so I’m not sure the focus should be on the number of colleges this has happened at, but rather the ethos that’s driving younger generations.
I find it hard to parse, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of room to remove the cap. Maybe if they conclude that the acts of the school amounted to felony libel?
> (6) Division (D)(2) of this section does not apply to a tort action where the alleged injury, death, or loss to person or property resulted from the defendant acting with one or more of the culpable mental states of purposely and knowingly as described in section 2901.22 of the Revised Code and when the defendant has been convicted of or pleaded guilty to a criminal offense that is a felony, that had as an element of the offense one or more of the culpable mental states of purposely and knowingly as described in that section, and that is the basis of the tort action.
We sometimes turn off flags on stories that are substantive and interesting and where there's hope for a thoughtful discussion. Sometimes those stories have one ideological polarity, sometimes another.
To me, that takes precedence over partisan politics. And it's not like this is Tucker Carlson reporting on Fox News, this from is a pretty respected, left-leaning site.
And this story is about a $887 million institution pressuring a working-class assault victim to drop charges against their attackers, by using libel and economic sanctions.
So what makes this story 'conservative'? That the victim was white?
I think we both agree that if the racism charge had strong merit (it didn't), then most would see this as a liberal news story because that's mostly who would be focusing on it. People tend to be drawn to stories that reinforce their world view.
That, of course, doesn't mean it shouldn't be part of the discussion here. (I've been active in this thread so obviously I think it should be here.)
Edit: Also, I'm not the person you were responding to but this was very dishonest of you:
> That the victim was white?
OP said exactly why they thought it was conservative. They cited that it was because it was related to "conservative campus panic." To pretend they could have said it because "the victim was white" is very dishonest of you.
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?
About your last paragraph, I feel like you're just illustrating my larger point. Is it really en vogue to "hate on whites" or is the media and internet pushing that narrative because divisiveness brings page views? Btw, Jim Crow wasn't just about hating on black people, it was about a legal and societal framework where blacks were kept in subservience, poverty, disenfranchisement and constant fear for their lives. People didn't need to hate blacks so much, as long as they stayed in their place. Things were orders of magnitude worse than people on Twitter jawboning about reparations and white privilege.
If you really don't see that and want to continue with the racist apologia then by all means, it's a free country.
I've learned a lot about HN today.
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.
Personal attacks will get you banned here. Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20192246 and marked it off-topic.
In what institution would she be able to keep her job?
So yes - some protest and confusion in the days after are understandable. But the actions of the college go way beyond that.
She should have been fired long ago the college should have apologized to the community alumni and the bakery and then it would all have ended.
This is a good example of colleges getting completely out of hand.
