Stinging rebuke to woke Oberlin College By David Zukerman
It might be said that an Ohio appellate court, March 31, struck a blow against woke-ism by upholding a multimillion-dollar verdict against Oberlin College. At issue was a tortious response by the college to a shoplifting incident, November 9, 2016, at Gibson’s Bakery in Oberlin. The incident led to protests by Oberlin students and administrators against the bakery, accusing the owners of racism and a history of racial profiling. (A black male student had been apprehended by a bakery employee for shoplifting and he and two black women were arrested in connection with the incident. In August 2017 they pleaded guilty to lesser charges.)
The bakery and its owners, Allyn W. Gibson and his son David R. Gibson (both now deceased), sued the college and its dean of students for libel, interference with business relationships, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, winning a jury verdict of $44 million, reduced to $31 million (comprising compensatory and punitive damages, and including attorney’s fees of $6 million).
In upholding the judgment of the trial court, the appellate panel affirmed that the attacks on the bakery were actionable, not opinion, and that the plaintiffs were not public figures. A woke court, arguably, would have ruled that a flyer distributed by college administrators and students accusing the bakery of racism and racial profile was merely opinion The appellate ruling noted, however, that the bakery and its owners had not voluntarily injected themselves into the controversy at issue, nor in the “extreme public criticism” that followed. This ruling rejected the claim of the college that the plaintiffs were public figures — and therefore the applicable standard for libel should have “actual malice” not negligence.
The decision further pointed out that witnesses at trial testified that they never saw evidence of racism at the bakery, while testimony from college officials on the racism issue was mere hearsay. (Witnesses for Oberlin testified they had heard about racism at Gibson’s.)
The decision also took note of plaintiffs’ contention that the damage award was just 3% of the assets of the college. and, in connection with the punitive damages award, will not serve to deter wrongful conduct. The appellate panel rejected this argument. But in affirming the award of attorneys’ fees one and a half times the actual hourly fees of more than $4 million, the court seemed to recognize that counsel for the college was overly zealous in defending the college, including 32 depositions (some lasting several days) and 33 motions.
The followlng portion of a paragraph from the unanimous appellate decision (at page 6) indicates how the college administration was implicated. (“Raimondi” is Meredith Raimondi, then dean of students):
{¶15} The Gibsons also presented evidence that members of Oberlin’s senior administrative staff had communicated via several text and email messages to express their anger about the Gibsons pressing charges against the three Oberlin students and their feelings that the college should not work with the Gibsons to resolve this situation. For example, the interim assistant dean was present in court in August 2017 when the Oberlin students were convicted for their role in the November 2016 bakery incident. From the courthouse, she sent a text message to Raimondo, stating that “[t]his is the most egregious process” and that “I hope we rain fire and brimstone on that store.”
The media’s “usual suspects” have, thus far, ignored the latest development in the travail of Gibson’s Bakery. And perhaps that is for the better; one can imagine a media headline along these lines: “Ohio Court ignores systematic racism in Oberlin bakery.”
What next? The appellate decision itself indicates that the college has, throughout, maintained an imperious mindset — based not on a sense of right and wrong, but of a felt need to appease a student body, thus encouraging young people to accept the notion that the definition of “opinion” and “fact” is up to the leftist cabal to determine.
The college, by the way, has yet to apologize for its tortious treatment towards Gibson’s, in business in Oberlin since 1885, fifty-five years after the college was established.
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