Oberlin college and free speech debate

[Urbanredneck]

I think the college brought it on themselves. Remember the bakery owners tried to reach a settlement with the college and they refused to budge. Plus they out and out demanded that the bakery drop charges on the students and to contact them, not the police, if any student in the future shoplifted. Can they get more arrogant?

I mean the college could have nipped the whole thing in the bud by putting out a statement telling students they had no evidence of racism from the bakery (which they did later on after they found themselves losing). Furthermore remind students that if they dont want to get arrested, dont shoplift and to respect the laws (again which they later did when they found out they were losing).

Finally do NOT support the student protests and remind them and the bakery that this is a student led thing only and does NOT reflect on nor endoresed by the college. Ex. dont give them credit for protesting. Dont send over food. Dont allow them to use campus copy machines for free. Dont have your staff members egging them on with a bullhorn.

I fully understand that college aged students can often fly off the handle and go crazy on things when it comes to social justice issues but its sometimes up to the adults in the room to step in and be a voice of reason.

[Velocity]

@Bone

$11M seems high to me too, in terms of compensatory damages, and in all likelihood it is since it’s the figure from the plaintiff’s accountant. From reading the article linked by gr8rguy, it seems there are other tangential business ventures that are being claimed to be impacted as well, both current and future so that is contributing to the high figure.

If it’s punitive damages, those often are far higher than mere compensatory damages.

[Ravenman]

@Urbanredneck

I think the college brought it on themselves. Remember the bakery owners tried to reach a settlement with the college and they refused to budge. Plus they out and out demanded that the bakery drop charges on the students and to contact them, not the police, if any student in the future shoplifted. Can they get more arrogant?

I mean the college could have nipped the whole thing in the bud by putting out a statement telling students they had no evidence of racism from the bakery (which they did later on after they found themselves losing). Furthermore remind students that if they dont want to get arrested, dont shoplift and to respect the laws (again which they later did when they found out they were losing).

Finally do NOT support the student protests and remind them and the bakery that this is a student led thing only and does NOT reflect on nor endoresed by the college. Ex. dont give them credit for protesting. Dont send over food. Dont allow them to use campus copy machines for free. Dont have your staff members egging them on with a bullhorn.

I fully understand that college aged students can often fly off the handle and go crazy on things when it comes to social justice issues but its sometimes up to the adults in the room to step in and be a voice of reason.

These suggestions are all as reasonable as proposing that Brigham Young University give out free condoms in dorms.

[cmkeller]

UrbanRedneck:

Well no, the college itself has admitted that there was NO history of racism from the bakery. The college itself admits this in a letter shown in this article sent out from the college:

Not quite. The article says that the Gibsons’ lawyer said that that’s the letter the college should have written. At no time (unless you can show me otherwise) did the college actually write such a letter, admitting to the Gibsons’ lack of racism.

[g8rguy]

@Velocity

If it’s punitive damages, those often are far higher than mere compensatory damages.

That’s the compensatory damages. The punitive damages were three times higher, which is likely to be reduced because apparently relevant Ohio law generally limits punitive damages to twice the compensatory damages. See here.

Oberlin has filed a motion to reduce total damages to $14 million; the bakery and the Gibsons have come back with a brief arguing that the correct total is about $25 million. So the total damages awarded, I would guess as a non-lawyer, would come in somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the original $44 million. Ravenman, the bakery’s brief seems to have a somewhat more complete accounting of the damages, but parts of it are redacted. I didn’t read through it carefully.

This information, I should note, has come from the coverage at legalinsurrection. I don’t mean to imply that their coverage is unbiased, but I presume that the documents available on scribd are not fabricated.

---

Also, it’s 8, then r. I really need to correct my youthful indiscretion and find a less embarrassing name!

[Ruken]

@Urbanredneck

Ok, thanks for your comments. I would like to answer you response “I’m not convinced that the college actively supported the students in any way that moral people would hold against them.”

I looked around again and found THIS article by The Atlantic.

Here are some quotes:
"
_ Oberlin employees were among those who distributed a boycott flyer, and they allowed it to be copied for free on school machines. It declared without evidence that the bakery was a “racist establishment with a long account of racial profiling and discrimination” and called its behavior toward the three students who broke the law there “heinous.”

_ Reed, Raimondo, and some Oberlin professors “raised their fists in support of the demonstration,” with some of them “shouting the defamatory statements on a bullhorn, thereby assuring that a large audience would hear their defamatory statements.”

_ Credit was given to students who attended the protest in lieu of classes, and administrators bought them food to support them."

Does that imply the college supported the protesters?

This is certainly an improvement over the shoddy case you made in your OP.

But if I allow someone to make copies on my employer’s photocopier, if I hand those photocopies out, if I go to a protest and defame someone, hell if my boss goes to a protest and defames someone, I hardly expect my employer to be on the hook for any of that. The credit thing? Maybe. But simply going to the protest isn’t defamatory. And sending food to a defamer hardly seems like anything damaging.

[Shodan]

@Ruken

But if I allow someone to make copies on my employer’s photocopier, if I hand those photocopies out, if I go to a protest and defame someone, hell if my boss goes to a protest and defames someone, I hardly expect my employer to be on the hook for any of that. The credit thing? Maybe. But simply going to the protest isn’t defamatory. And sending food to a defamer hardly seems like anything damaging.

Every time I log into my work PC, I have to click OK on a disclaimer that I won’t use the PC to defame or harass anyone. And if my boss said “If you want to harass someone we’ll pay you for it at your regular rates and also spring for lunch” I doubt it would reduce their liability.

Regards,
Shodan

[Urbanredneck]

@cmkeller

UrbanRedneck:

Not quite. The article says that the Gibsons’ lawyer said that that’s the letter the college should have written. At no time (unless you can show me otherwise) did the college actually write such a letter, admitting to the Gibsons’ lack of racism.

Ok, I reread it and your right. My mix up.

But that goes back to my point that if the administration had wanted to they could have curtailed if not stopped this from ever getting out of control and it would have been just a day or 2 with a few kids handing out flyers and protesting and would not have reflected on the college. I’m sure in its near 100 years of business the bakery has had to deal with students and other customers making demands and accusations and it would have been treated the same.

[sps49sd]

@g8rguy

…This information, I should note, has come from the coverage at legalinsurrection. I don’t mean to imply that their coverage is unbiased, but I presume that the documents available on scribd are not fabricated…

The Legal Insurrection site contains a lot of other information, as does the Oberlin Chronicle-Telegram. There are emails by faculty discussing how to weaponize the student body and retaliate against an Oberlin professor who wasn’t onboard with the railroading.

One item that makes me wonder is a student who was at the shop when the incident happened. She did not observe the fake ID nor, apparently, the wine bottles, what she saw was the cashier chase and tackle the shoplifter for no reason she could see. To her, it is believable that a bakery worker/ employee/ owner would chase and assault a young black male for no reason at all. There is OPD bodycam video showing her talking to police and their mention of why later on still sailed right over her head.

[Gyrate]

@g8rguy

This information, I should note, has come from the coverage at legalinsurrection. I don’t mean to imply that their coverage is unbiased, but I presume that the documents available on scribd are not fabricated.

As I noted above, the fact that the article writer went out of the way to shoehorn in a well-known racist dogwhistle does not inspire confidence.

Also, it’s 8, then r. I really need to correct my youthful indiscretion and find a less embarrassing name!

I started out as “jr8”. Name change can happen - just PM a mod once you’ve given it some “mature consideration”.

[Ruken]

@Shodan

Every time I log into my work PC, I have to click OK on a disclaimer that I won’t use the PC to defame or harass anyone. And if my boss said “If you want to harass someone we’ll pay you for it at your regular rates and also spring for lunch” I doubt it would reduce their liability.

And I don’t have to click anything. I still don’t see how my boss is responsible if I misuse the equipment I didn’t see where anyone was paid to defame anyone. And again, sending pizza does not make one responsible for what the recipients say.

[Ruken]

But sure, if my boss knows what I’m doing and allows me to bill my time to overhead, then sure, she can expect some shit from that.

[Shodan]

@Ruken

I still don’t see how my boss is responsible if I misuse the equipment

The disclaimer is there because my company thinks they might be.

I didn’t see where anyone was paid to defame anyone.

No, they got class credit for defamation. That’s roughly equivalent to being paid by an employer.

And again, sending pizza does not make one responsible for what the recipients say.

In and of itself, probably not. But it makes it marginally harder to argue that they had no involvement, and didn’t support the defamation.

Regards,
Shodan

[Ruken]

What I’ve read here is that they got credit for attending, not for any particular message.

[g8rguy]

@Gyrate

As I noted above, the fact that the article writer went out of the way to shoehorn in a well-known racist dogwhistle does not inspire confidence.

I would certainly not encourage anyone to blindly accept their editorial stance or their analysis (and in fact, I would discourage blindly accepting anyone’s editorial stance or analysis, particularly when it flatters your preconceptions). I have no doubt that their ideological bent also colors their factual reporting: which facts they choose to report, how they choose to report them, and so on.

In this particular instance, though, Occam’s razor suggests to me that the linked documents are genuine. That is, there are three possibilities I can see:[ol]
[li]The documents are fakes.[/li][li]The documents are genuine but were never filed.[/li][li]The documents are genuine and were filed.[/li][/ol]
For my part, I think the third possibility most likely. But if you judge differently, I’m not going to try changing your mind!

I started out as “jr8”. Name change can happen - just PM a mod once you’ve given it some “mature consideration”.

Thanks. It’s just something I’ve never gotten around to doing because as you can see I don’t post here much!

[UltraVires]

@nelliebly

Folks, this is one jury verdict. There’s already an appeal in the works. It’s not a SCOTUS decision. Here are two relevant SCOTUS decisions:

Teachers have the right to express opinions in public: *Pickering *v. *Board of Education *(1968).

Pickering, a teacher, wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, a form of public protest. SCOTUS ruled that Pickering’s letter was constitutional free speech. From Oyez:

Bearing on the Oberlin case: The professors and other employees have the right to voice opinions publically. Even if the allegations of racism (past or present) were false, the Oberlin faculty and other employees would have to have known the statements were false or made them recklessly, i.e., without due consideration.

Did the college, itself–that is, the administration under the auspices of the Board of Trustees–sponsor the protests? I can’t find evidence of that, but if it did, does the (private) college count as an individual, as SCOTUS said corporations do?

Boycotts are legal: NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982)

From Oyez:

SCOTUS decision : Unanimous*

Bearing on the Oberlin case: Businesses cannot recover damages from boycotters.

And some context: in 1835, two years after its founding, Oberlin, a private college founded by Presbyterians, became the first US college to admit Blacks. Two years later, it admitted women. It fought for abolition. By 1900, a third of all blacks with college degrees graduated from Oberlin. Once again, history is relevant to understanding.

And this is a long way from over.
*Justice Thurgood Marshall didn’t take part in consideration or decision.

Most of this misses the point and the rest is simply wrong. Yes, you have a right to boycott and speak in public. However the “actual malice” standard in libel law is only applicable for commentary on public figures. Libel is and always has been an exception to free speech.

This was a statement about a private person on a matter not of public concern. In those cases, truth is still a defense, but the standard you are held to is mere negligence if it turns out to be false.

From the facts presented, the jury may very well have gotten this one right. The college sided with the students and defamed a long standing business in the community with accusations that were false. That’s libel.

The college and every student at the college had an absolute right to not frequent the business anymore. They can tell their friends not to go to the business. But when you convince someone not to do business with someone because of a false reason, that is actionable.

Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, 472 U.S. 749 (1985)

[Urbanredneck]

Just an idea. Before this started I read how the students at Oberlin had protested demanding an end to grades below a C.

THIS article says 1 in 10 student freshmen actually intend on attending a protest while in college.

So the recipe is:

1. Students wanting to protest - something.
2. Students angry at administration over grades.
3. Black students angry over perceived racism on campus and around town.
4. Recent election of Trump which already made the left angry and wanting to lash out.
5. Administrators had seen demonstrations and sit-ins at colleges like University of Missouri getting out of control leading to the president resigning, a professor getting fired for getting involved and egging on the students, and a big drop in enrollment.

The Oberlin administration didnt want the students anger directed at them. They wanted it directed to an outsider. Then the bakery shoplifting situation lands at their feet and they push that. In a sense, throwing the bakery under the bus to protect their asses.

It’s funny, THIS article says often the way colleges meet studentdemands is to hire some sort of “Dean of Diversity” or building some new cultural center or something. Of course the costs are then passed onto the students.

No administrator wants student anger directed towards them.

Sidenote: Back when I was in college in the 80’s students were angry at administration over the parking issue and the administration asked why students were not instead, protesting an outside cause like South Africa or the environment.
So I ask, did the Oberlin administration support the protests to keep the students from going after them?

[Urbanredneck]

@Urbanredneck

Just an idea. Before this started I read how the students at Oberlin had protested demanding an end to grades below a C.

THIS article says 1 in 10 student freshmen actually intend on attending a protest while in college.

So the recipe is:

1. Students wanting to protest - something.
2. Students angry at administration over grades.
3. Black students angry over perceived racism on campus and around town.
4. Recent election of Trump which already made the left angry and wanting to lash out.
5. Administrators had seen demonstrations and sit-ins at colleges like University of Missouri getting out of control leading to the president resigning, a professor getting fired for getting involved and egging on the students, and a big drop in enrollment.

The Oberlin administration didnt want the students anger directed at them. They wanted it directed to an outsider. Then the bakery shoplifting situation lands at their feet and they push that. In a sense, throwing the bakery under the bus to protect their asses.

It’s funny, THIS article says often the way colleges meet studentdemands is to hire some sort of “Dean of Diversity” or building some new cultural center or something. Of course the costs are then passed onto the students.

No administrator wants student anger directed towards them.

Sidenote: Back when I was in college in the 80’s students were angry at administration over the parking issue and the administration asked why students were not instead, protesting an outside cause like South Africa or the environment.
So I ask, did the Oberlin administration support the protests to keep the students from going after them?

I want to reply to my own post.

I found THIS article which goes along with what I was saying along with some background for the college, the town of Oberlin, and the county where it resides.

Some quotes:
"
A few years ago, they had students saying they wanted finals cancelled because they were protesting minority men being shot by police in nearby Cleveland; in Dec. of 2015, the school’s black student union published 14 pages of racial accusations against the school with 58 demands to fix them; and the school had students thinking that the sushi in their cafeteria was “cultural appropriation” and unfit for eating because of that.

Instead of the school telling their students, “You are all crazy, and get back to studying,” they took on the “these poor snowflakes need our support” attitude.

It was the tail wagging the dog in the end, and ended up how most things like that do.
"

Also according to the article students were angry about Trumps election and needed a way to vent:
"
From the beginning of this mess that Oberlin College found itself in, it was what they did not do which was the most egregious. Their students were looking for some venting possibilities in the days after the Nov. 2016 presidential election, and the shoplifting case at Gibson’s was grabbed by the students as their symbolic protest expression of how they hated the world because of who was now president.

Instead of realizing that college students often do emotional and stupid things – especially when politics are involved – the Oberlin College administration added fuel to the fire. This is what the school president, Marvin Krislov, and dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, sent to students while the protests were still going on.

“This has been a difficult few days for our community, not simply because of the events at Gibson’s Bakery, but because of the fears and concerns that many are feeling in response to the outcome of the presidential election. We write foremost to acknowledge the pain and sadness that many of you are experiencing. We want you to know that the administration, faculty, and staff are here to support you as we work through this moment together.”

"

So a very good read.

[Guinastasia]

How about you try using a site that’s a wee less partisan than “Legal Insurrection”? :dubious:

[Hellestal]

@Guinastasia

How about you try using a site that’s a wee less partisan than “Legal Insurrection”? :dubious:

It’s hard to avoid Legal Insurrection as a cite here because they seemed to be the only folks with someone present reporting literally every day of the trial.

The quality of their commentary was not high.

But the reports also had plenty of direct quotes from the trial, and those direct cites (ignoring the lower quality commentary) seemed to strike other legal observers as extremely damning of Oberlin’s behavior, even regardless of the legal point of issue. Another lawyer I found commenting on the trial said something to the effect of “When the law isn’t on your side, argue the facts. And the facts here are so incredibly terrible for Oberlin that they should’ve settled.” My favorite example is when a former college security employee testified that a low-tier Oberlin admin present at the bakery protest told him to stop taking pictures, and threatened to key his car if he didn’t stop.

I don’t know much about defamation law, but there were just so fuckin many dipshit stories like that about the Oberlin admins, especially about the vice president of the college, like when they found her own email saying “Fuck them” and that she was tempted to “unleash the students”.

Regardless of the law (about which I know very little), the abject hatefulness and flagrant mendacity from the Oberlin admins could not have possibly been helpful to their case in front of a local jury. I don’t think the low-quality commentary from that website clouds how bad the college acted here.