What we don’t want to do is jeopardize the viability of the institution.

June 28, 2019 2:23 PM

Town versus gown. An Ohio judge ordered Oberlin College to pay a local bakery $25 million in damages. The amount was trimmed down from $44 million initially awarded by a local jury, and represents relief for reputational and financial harm allegedly caused to Gibson's by Oberlin students and administrators during protests and related events in 2016 and 2017.

Carmen Twillie Ambar, Oberlin's president, defends her campus, sees the jury award as a bad sign for student free speech, and thinks the award will be cut down (more official statements). One Oberlin professor also defends his campus, while the student newspaper criticizes media coverage of the story. The college maintains a FAQ on the case.

One of the Gibsons defends their lawsuit in USA Today. Their legal team publishes a FAQ.

The ABA saw the case of having potential First Amendment issues. At Academeblog John K. Wilson thinks the award should be overturned. At Forbes Evan Gertsmann deems the award excessive.

In contrast, Quillette criticizes the college, as does Conor Friedersdorf, arguing that college students and administrators deserved blame.

Unsurprisingly, some conservatives are having a field day with the story, like National Review and the James G. Martin Center. Legal Insurrection has followed the story closely (Twitter thread).

More:
-The Wikipedia entry.
-A quick round table on the story among Cleveland Plain Dealer and cleveland.com editors.
-Reflections from Cleveland Jewish News.
-Chronicle of Higher Education story (paywalled)

Oberlin previously.

posted by doctornemo (50 comments total)

From the NPR interview, is seems the new Oberlin president doesn't dispute the facts of the incident and its aftermath, only whether Oberlin should be held institutionally responsible.
posted by PhineasGage at 2:34 PM on June 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Yes, I don't think it was really an issue of free speech. It was a matter of whether the student speech against Gibsons was incited by Oberlin's dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, making the college responsible. As I understand it, the jury believed that's what happened.
posted by pangolin party at 2:50 PM on June 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

Unsurprisingly, some conservatives are having a field day with the story

I'd feel a lot better about things if this weren't a dead turn of phrase
posted by billjings at 2:53 PM on June 28, 2019

Oberlin! I spent an enlightening night on campus, December 1969. The dorms were coed. I saw a naked man walking to the coed bathroom with his green silk bathrobe trailing out behind him. At the coed sinks the girls were unshaven, washing up; while the boys were shaving. The students had thrown food services off campus and had organized communal dining halls, with shared labor. It was a Friday night and the campus was "lit up," by a gazillion hits of pharmaceutically pure LSD, allegedly stolen from a government lab. You gotta wonder, was Oberlin's student body an experiment? I just stopped to see a high school friend on the way to Canada for a Christmas visit with family. I was amazed at the place, it was awesome! Very different than the University of Utah. Obviously it hasn't changed much, as far as the social cohesion goes. Gotta love the spirit, even run amok.
posted by Oyéah at 3:09 PM on June 28, 2019 [16 favorites]

Having gone to a school with similar sensibilities, I have to wonder if Oberlin can be held responsible not because of something they did in this particular instance but rather because in bringing all those students into town they created a public hazard.

Lord knows the locals in Santa Cruz paid a price brought on by over-enthusiastic young social reformers. That could also explain the jury’s enthusiasm, presuming it was made up of locals.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:25 PM on June 28, 2019

> I have to wonder if Oberlin can be held responsible not because of something they did in this particular instance but rather because in bringing all those students into town they created a public hazard.

You're not serious, are you? Without Oberlin students, the town would not support the existence of most of the local businesses.

I didn't know anything about this case, and from a quick skim, I'm coming down hard on Oberlin's side. They say in their FAQ, "The jury has spoken, and we have listened. While we respect the jury’s service and we believe there are things to learn from the verdict, we do not believe that the jury applied past legal precedent with respect to the legal claims in this case. And well, they are being polite and careful, but it seems like this is a local jury trying to soak the golden goose for what they can get.

Again, maybe my understanding is all wrong, and the Dean of Students actively incited the protestors on behalf of the College. Otherwise, the jury award makes very little sense, except as a way to take it out on the local heavyweight for other offenses.
posted by RedOrGreen at 3:32 PM on June 28, 2019 [8 favorites]

People shouldn't be empowered to beat other people up and the bakery should have had to pay.
posted by bleep at 3:47 PM on June 28, 2019

I can't help but think that Oberlin's policy of the Dean of Students being present is what put them on the hook.

If the students spontaneously protest and the school merely allows it, then it's freedom of assembly. If the students protest and the school acknowledges it as an Oberlin Protest™ and sends a representative of the college, then they're tacitly endorsing the protest.

The reason why the bakery is even allowed to sue the college in the first place is because this wasn't an assembly of individuals, but an officially sanctioned protest. If the Dean of Students had joined the protest of her own volition and not in the role of college representative, the college surely would have been legally shielded.
posted by explosion at 3:52 PM on June 28, 2019 [10 favorites]

Without Oberlin students, the town would not support the existence of most of the local businesses.

This assumes the locals have put even a little critical thinking into it. As a resident of Northeast Ohio I assure you they have not.
posted by Tehhund at 3:54 PM on June 28, 2019 [18 favorites]

What should the bakery have paid for?
posted by bq at 4:00 PM on June 28, 2019

Is “inside higher ed” a conservative anti-college rag, or is it just that conservatives are the only ones who bother to comment?

Don’t read the comments. It’s 90% “fucking liberal elitists got what they deserved” and the other 10% is people agreeing with them.
posted by caution live frogs at 4:38 PM on June 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

As far as I can tell, the only person beaten was the clerk, not the shoplifter.
posted by bumpkin at 4:41 PM on June 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

>> in bringing all those students into town they created a public hazard.
>
> You're not serious, are you?

Eh, mostly I’m musing. At UC Santa Cruz there was a constant string of protests and boycotts and some of them turned out to be powerful statements about doing your basic research. As far as I know mistakenly boycotting innocent businesses or accidentally destroying reputations is just something that happens as people get their feet under them.

It almost seems like something a school would carry insurance to cover, if for no other reason but to handle faculty lawsuits.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:55 PM on June 28, 2019

Is “inside higher ed” a conservative anti-college rag, or is it just that conservatives are the only ones who bother to comment?

the second
posted by thelonius at 5:00 PM on June 28, 2019 [16 favorites]

People should be able to boycott and a college should be allowed to support that. Boycotting is one of the few tools left for protesting, so therefore it is under attack. Demanding people spend their money at your establishment regardless of whether it meets their needs is pure entitlement.
posted by M-x shell at 5:10 PM on June 28, 2019 [8 favorites]

If stuff associated with the boycotts and protests was libelous, it's confusing to me why the college would have to pay, but individual protesters would not. Can anyone who understands the law better weigh in? Is it just because the Gibsons chose to sue the entity that actually has money, and not the ones that don't?
posted by value of information at 5:11 PM on June 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

It's worth reading the facts of the situation.
posted by PhineasGage at 5:14 PM on June 28, 2019 [15 favorites]

This from the FAQ is bizarre:

"Oberlin’s policy handbook directs that the Dean of Students is to be present at all protests to ensure the student demonstrations are safe and lawful for all, including residents and downtown merchants. In keeping with that policy, Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo was the College’s official representative throughout the protest. There were no arrests, physical violence, or property damagedat the protest"

How does that even work? Do they monitor social media to find out if any students are planning on protesting anything? What if students are attending two or more protests the same day, does the dean go to both? Surely students protest things every day or at least once a week (that's what students do!). Is this dean's whole job attending protests?

And apart from how does it work, WHY?? It really feels like overstepping for the university to follow its students to their non-student, off-campus activities.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:22 PM on June 28, 2019 [7 favorites]

As a small correction to the OP: Quillette is a conservative-media vehicle, just like National Review. So, it should have been in that paragraph, for clarity.

Personally, I think that the students chose the wrong hill to charge. They took a garden-variety case of someone getting caught shoplifting, and turned it into something that it clearly wasn't. There are likely to be groups and businesses in town that deserve to go under the microscope for things like what the students were complaining about. But, it weakens all of our positions when an unchecked anti-racist rage-cannon is deployed against people who aren't actually racists.
posted by Citrus at 5:41 PM on June 28, 2019 [16 favorites]

For the legal side, here's a key part - Judge's instructions to the jury excerpted in the plaintiffs' FAQ:

Furthermore, I have also found that the statement contained within the flyer that "This is a RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION" and the statement contained within the student senate resolution that "Gibson's has a history of racial profiling and discriminatory treatment of students and residents alike" if false, are libelous per se, meaning they are of such a nature that it is presumed they tend to degrade or disgrace plaintiffs, or hold plaintiffs up to public hatred, contempt, or scorn because they tend to injure Plaintiffs in their trade or profession.

If stuff associated with the boycotts and protests was libelous, it's confusing to me why the college would have to pay, but individual protesters would not. Can anyone who understands the law better weigh in?

Possibly some protesters incurred liability but that doesn't require the family to sue them. For one thing any students who spoke libel probably have much less money than the college, and the family also seems more forgiving of immaturity from the students than from the administration.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 5:56 PM on June 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

"In keeping with that policy, Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo was the College’s official representative throughout the protest."

And that's why they lost. The FAQ provided by Gibson's attorneys contain a lot of trial testimony showing Raimondo actively siding with the protesters, distributing leaflets, and preventing reporters from covering the protests.

Her behavior was so egregious, an alumnus was "dismayed at the reported involvement of Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo as a partisan intervenor, if not a provocateur, in supporting boycotts and urging retribution against the Gibsons."
posted by micketymoc at 5:56 PM on June 28, 2019 [16 favorites]

I can't help but think that Oberlin's policy of the Dean of Students being present is what put them on the hook.

If the part about the Dean helping pass out fliers accusing the Gibson Bakery of a history of racism is true, I agree. On the other hand if all they did was buy cold students gloves and generally try to ensure a peaceful outcome, I don't.

Of course, it very much looks like the former. If not how do you explain this from the Atlantic:

At trial, [Dean] Raimondo was revealed to have sent a text reacting to [Prof.] Copeland’s letter that said, “Fuck him. I’d say unleash the students if I wasn’t convinced this needs to be put behind us.”

It seems to me that Oberlin should create a better firewall between the actions of its students and those of its administrators.
posted by axiom at 6:01 PM on June 28, 2019 [4 favorites]

But, it weakens all of our positions when an unchecked anti-racist rage-cannon is deployed against people who aren't actually racists.

I disagree most strongly: people must be allowed to be wrong, and learn from their error, without letting anyone else spread around guilt-by-association to unrelated others that happen to share vague connections like "also boycotted someone" or "also attended college" or "also talk about racism like it's a real thing".

It's an argument I'm usually making about bicycling, and why someone running a red light is zero justification for getting mad at my existing. But the principle transfers: collective guilt is dumb, people will try to throw it around anyway, it must not stand unopposed.
posted by traveler_ at 6:01 PM on June 28, 2019 [5 favorites]

The Oberlin FAQ also glosses over Raimondo's role in the distribution of the defamatory flyers, while p. 25-27 of the Gibson's FAQ shows her quite active role in their distribution, supported by the actual trial transcripts.
posted by micketymoc at 6:08 PM on June 28, 2019 [4 favorites]

[In re "why did they sue Oberlin instead of the individual people"] Is it just because the Gibsons chose to sue the entity that actually has money, and not the ones that don't?

Basically, yes. As an attorney, if my client had grounds for a lawsuit against 15 people and 14 of them had no money, I can tell who I would choose to sue.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 6:12 PM on June 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

Is “inside higher ed” a conservative anti-college rag
No. It's one of the two leading American higher education news sites, along with the Chronicle of Higher Ed (which also appears in print). It does not have a conservative agenda.

or is it just that conservatives are the only ones who bother to comment?
I've found that conservatives tend to outnumber progressives in comments on articles with political connections. Otherwise, it's a mix of people in and around academia.
posted by doctornemo at 6:39 PM on June 28, 2019 [7 favorites]

> Without Oberlin students, the town would not support the existence of most of the local businesses.

Having lived in a couple rural college towns in the rust belt and visited many more, I can assure you that the mutual antagonism of -- and mutually exploitive relationship between -- the townies and the campus is a universal phenomenon and more emotionally fraught than a rational, moderated dialog can overcome. Doesn't seem to matter whether the schools were extremely conservative and (on paper at least) well-aligned with local politics, or were socially liberal and at odds.

There's a lot of class resentment by the locals, not necessarily unjustified, in having to work straight out of high school or commuting to community college, to pick up local jobs in what are usually economically depressed, professionally isolated parts of the country, all while witnessing an endless procession of teenagers enter their twenties and apparently having the times of their lives before graduating to parts of the world most people only get to see on TV.
posted by at by at 7:07 PM on June 28, 2019 [23 favorites]

There are some conservative, anti-education readers who frequently comment on articles in Inside Higher Ed. But I'm also pretty sure that some conservative mailing lists, Facebook groups, websites, or other venues also routinely mention specific IHE articles or explicitly point people to an article of interest as it's not uncommon for a single article to get several dozen comments from people who are anti-education. This is definitely the kind of topic that would attract this kind of attention.
posted by ElKevbo at 7:15 PM on June 28, 2019 [4 favorites]

To be fair, at by, it's also common for some entitled young people in college to make poor decisions that are persistently annoying or harmful to their neighbors who have long-term roots in the town. It's particularly problematic in towns where the proportion of residents who are students - temporary residents who have different values and priorities than many residents - is high.
posted by ElKevbo at 7:19 PM on June 28, 2019 [8 favorites]

Some further context as an Oberlin alum:

As with most of these kinds of thing, the incident in question is just one among a long history of people of color experiencing harassment and suspicion.

The details of the incident are being reported uncritically from the police report, despite the fact that the report is significantly different from eyewitness accounts.

The Gibson family’s money mostly comes from owning a bunch of land in the town, they keep the store going as kinda a flagship for the community rather than as a significant source of their livelihood.
posted by Jon_Evil at 7:40 PM on June 28, 2019 [14 favorites]

But I'm also pretty sure that some conservative mailing lists, Facebook groups, websites, or other venues also routinely mention specific IHE articles or explicitly point people to an article of interest

Right - I have no doubt that this article is getting brigaded in its comments, especially after reading in the post text: "Unsurprisingly, some conservatives are having a field day with the story..."
posted by thelonius at 7:44 PM on June 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

The details of the incident are being reported uncritically from the police report.

A full trial was held. With multiple witnesses testifying. The students were in the wrong, as was the college dean. Why is this so hard to acknowledge?
posted by PhineasGage at 7:48 PM on June 28, 2019 [18 favorites]

The college also tried to settle for something more in line with "the students got a little hyped up about INJUSTICE" (which is the default mode for most of Oberlin's student population; I can only imagine the simmering urge to DO ACTIVISM that must permeate the campus under the current regime) but Gibson's refused to accept anything less than $30M. From what I've read, Raimondo was present because it's policy for an administrator to be present, she "shouted through a bullhorn" in the sense that she announced her presence and the reason for it using a bullhorn, and she "distributed flyers" in the sense that someone asked her for a copy and she went and found a student who had a bunch and gave one over.

I feel like pretty much everyone is an asshole here, but I'll note that the very best service I (a white male) ever got at Gibson's was "surly but apathetic" and I have no trouble imagining that minority students get hardcore stink-eye and worse on the reg. (Not that this justifies shoplifting or buying alcohol with a fake license, of course, but meh.)
posted by Scattercat at 8:13 PM on June 28, 2019 [2 favorites]

As with most of these kinds of thing, the incident in question is just one among a long history of people of color experiencing harassment and suspicion.

But the Wikipedia article assured me that there is no documented record of any other accusation of racial bias at that bakery!

Why is this so hard to acknowledge?

The above is why.
posted by traveler_ at 8:13 PM on June 28, 2019 [4 favorites]

A full trial was held. With multiple witnesses testifying. The students were in the wrong, as was the college dean. Why is this so hard to acknowledge?

I mean, it's not like this country has an otherwise-impeccable record of always finding the truth when cases go to trial. That's the whole point. Relying on the outcome of the trial to "prove" that the students were in the wrong is a circular argument, because the trial and its outcome are what people keep objecting to. You can't cite the fact that there was a trial as proof that it was fair.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 8:43 PM on June 28, 2019 [10 favorites]

I mainly feel sorry for the perpetrators in this case. They did something dumb and thoughtless in their first semester of college, and then came a giant imbroglio that did them no good at all.
posted by schwinggg! at 8:45 PM on June 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

Read. The. Articles.

The trial was about whether Oberlin should be institutionally responsible for actively harming the shop and its owners. What is incontrovertible is that 1) the kid was shoplifting, 2) the shop manager wasn't motivated by racism in this incident. Whether or not 3) the college dean actively facilitated & supported the protests (please read the effing emails) is a separate issue. The protests were misguided and unjustified regardless.

We loathe the Trumpists for yelling "fake news" at any facts that don't fit their prior beliefs about the way the world works. Why can't we on the Left hold ourselves to a better standard?
posted by PhineasGage at 9:14 PM on June 28, 2019 [12 favorites]

Why say "there was a trial, with witnesses, the kids were in the wrong!" if the trial was only to determine whether Oberlin was institutionally responsible? Anyway, the point is that it's kind of taking a hard line to claim that you know which facts are incontrovertible, given that there are major objections by people close to the story. I won't bother hashing out those objections, because there are links that summarize them fine.

Beyond all that, there is the separate issue of whether it's justified for the school to pay such a large amount of money over the incident, and whether that impacts the right of students to organize boycotts and protests. That's something to consider independently of whether they had their facts wrong, because the concern is how this may impact the students' rights to take similar actions in the future. They may well have had it wrong, and the dean may well have been taking a greater role than she should have, but people aren't only concerned about whether the protesters had their facts right. So not only are the facts of the case not incontrovertible, they're also not a good reason to argue that people should accept this penalty as right and fair.

And oh please, the hyperbolic handwringing about how I'm as bad as a Trumpist yelling "fake news." I don't normally say stuff like "my eyes are rolling out of my head," but... you get the idea. I've been at a university that was the center of national reporting, and I am not at all surprised that people are claiming the situation has been misrepresented, both in court and in the papers, because that was my experience, too. I'm not concerned about how this fits a narrative, I just don't think it's the place for random observers, myself included, to try and declare which facts are incontrovertible, when there are objections from people much closer to the actual events that occurred.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 9:48 PM on June 28, 2019 [5 favorites]

Other context: the college predates the town. The college is small and the administration buildings are right next to where the protest was; it would be impossible to not notice. Gibson’s is literally the closest business to the college. And, finally, as an alum, I can assure you that Gibson’s sucks. That doesn’t justify shoplifting. But it sucks.
posted by kerf at 11:03 PM on June 28, 2019 [8 favorites]

So to award punitive damages in a libel case, according to the Gibson's lawyer's FAQ, one must act with a reckless disregard for truth. In short, you either need to know or have good reason to suspect that you are making a false statement.

To demonstrate a lack of racial discrimination, you need to show equal treatment between racial groups. So, not only do you need to show that the black kids you caught deserved shoplifting charges, you also need to prove that you also charged the white shoplifters who deserved it.

Nowhere in the Gibsons' lawyers' FAQ do they indicate that they even attempted to do the latter.

This would indicate that the plaintiffs do not actually understand what "racism" means, and are therefore in no position to make pronouncements about the truth or falsehood of claims of racism. Which certainly means they are in no position to accuse someone of having a "reckless disregard for truth."
posted by Zalzidrax at 11:46 PM on June 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

Why say "there was a trial, with witnesses, the kids were in the wrong!"
Because in this thread somebody claimed that all the facts we have were all just from some unjust, unchallenged police report. That there was in fact a full trial, with witnesses, exposes that as a lie.

given that there are major objections by people close to the story. I won't bother hashing out those objections

= "I'm just asking questions"
posted by patrick54 at 11:51 PM on June 28, 2019 [3 favorites]

This is a biased source, but there was a police report that "there were 40 arrested for shoplifting at Gibson’s in that 2011-2016 time period, and 33 of those were college students. Of the 40 arrested, 32 were white (80%), six were African-American (15%), and two were Asian (5%)." https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/05/gibsons-bakery-v-oberlin-college-trial-day-6-whats-a-bakery-worth/

This assumes the locals have put even a little critical thinking into it. As a resident of Northeast Ohio I assure you they have not.

Maybe if the college had done a little critical thinking here and had a little less hubris, they would never have allowed this case to go to court and become a referendum on how a local jury sees the college in light of this situation

The Gibson family’s money mostly comes from owning a bunch of land in the town, they keep the store going as kinda a flagship for the community rather than as a significant source of their livelihood.

If true, so what?


In my opinion, if there is evidence that a dean was personally distributing the materials found to be defamatory, which it seems there is, that is enough for the college to have liability. Of course the amount is ridiculous
posted by knoyers at 7:36 AM on June 29, 2019 [9 favorites]

@Zalzidrax:

As I understand the legal issue you have this exactly backwards.

If you make a libelous claim against a non-public figure ("Mark K faked lab work throughout his career"), I can show "reckless disregard for the truth" just by showing you have no idea if that's true. If you admit that you don't even know what kind of lab I work in, but just thought I needed to be taken down a peg, that's pretty much enough. I don't need to get witnesses and lab records from 15 years ago to try and prove a negative. The burden on me as plaintiff is to show you didn't care about the truth of what you said, an that it cause me damages.

Now as a defense you could prove what you said was actually true. (I believe the term of art is "affirmative defense".) But you can't admit you just made something up or repeated something you heard third hand and then say "prove me wrong." Not against a non-public person.

If I have this wrong happy to be corrected by one of the MeFi lawyers.
posted by mark k at 9:21 AM on June 29, 2019 [5 favorites]

I am using the definition of "reckless disregard" offered by the Gibson's FAQ:

"Reckless disregard" means that a defendant acted while actual aware of the probable falsity of the statement, or the defendant entertained serious doubts as to the truth of the statement. The defendant's failure to investigate may be considered evidence that the defendant acted with reckless disregard to the statement's truth or falsity, but only if you find from the facts and circumstances that a defendant had serious doubts about the truth of the statement."

Note this is for the punitive damages - the millions of dollars that's making this case hit the news - rather than for the damages that can be proven, i.e. the value of the bakery's contract with the school. You may very well be right about the standard of evidence for a libel case outside of the punitive damage aspect.

However it is the millions of dollars of punitive damages that I am objecting to.

Why this case seems like an injustice is because the US values freedom of speech strongly and libel law is written to punish liars and bullshitters, not people who happen to be wrong. The lawyers here have taken advantage of white people's fears of being accused of racism to punish people for being overzealous but wrong, which is not the intent of US libel laws.

And even worse, I don't think the Gibsons even bothered to demonstrate the students were wrong! Like I said, to show equal treatment, they need to show that they come down just as harshly on white shoplifters as they do on black ones. They did not do that as far as I can tell.

Which means, at this moment, after all this evidence has been presented, I haven't been given reasons to have "serious doubts" that someone claiming they were racist might be lying to me. Nevermind the students and the participating faculty member who, at the time. would have had even less of a clear picture.
posted by Zalzidrax at 10:39 AM on June 29, 2019 [2 favorites]

There are some conservative, anti-education readers who frequently comment on articles in Inside Higher Ed. But I'm also pretty sure that some conservative mailing lists, Facebook groups, websites, or other venues also routinely mention specific IHE articles or explicitly point people to an article of interest as it's not uncommon for a single article to get several dozen comments from people who are anti-education.

Yes. Also, the Chronicle - IHE's competitor - is almost completely paywalled, while IHE is open.
posted by doctornemo at 11:41 AM on June 29, 2019 [3 favorites]

Liberal NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof weighs in on the Oberlin case and other recent public disputes: "Stop the Knee-Jerk Liberalism That Hurts Its Own Cause."
posted by PhineasGage at 3:22 PM on June 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

Which means, at this moment, after all this evidence has been presented, I haven't been given reasons to have "serious doubts" that someone claiming they were racist might be lying to me.

Let's look at what the evidence actually is:

- multiple individuals had contacted Dean Raimundo offering an alternative story
- the college had initiated an investigation where they knocked on doors asking if people had any experience of racial profiling and, when they couldn't find a single person who did, covered up the existence of the investigation
- in an email thread way back in November, when the protests were going on, an employee of the college went looking for the facts about the situation, and reported this:

"I've been doing recon and the students are on the wrong side of this protest. They acted without ascertaining the facts first. They didn't even consider consulting POC in the community who know the gibson family a lot better than they do. I talked to some of the protestors and they refuse to hear anything that doesn't fit their narrative. The townspeople are furious and I think the college needs to speak out. This is not good."

When this report was presented on an email thread where the question was asked, "Does this change anything?" (with regard to a statement the college was about to release containing a paragraph that implied support for the protest), a senior administrator named Tita Reed responded with "Doesn't change a damn thing for me." In response to that, Dean Raimundo approved the release of the statement, including the paragraph that "implie[d] support for the protest"--again, according to the people at the college responsible for writing and approving it.

That's clear-as-day evidence that individuals within the college administration didn't just have "serious doubts" about the truth of the statements, they actually believed them to be completely false, based on actual independent investigation of the facts, and they expressed that belief to the people responsible for the college's public statements about the matter, including Dean Raimundo.
posted by tkfu at 5:30 PM on June 30, 2019 [7 favorites]

"I talked to some of the protestors and they refuse to hear anything that doesn't fit their narrative."
"I talked to some of the protestors and they refuse to hear anything that doesn't fit their narrative."
"I talked to some of the protestors and they refuse to hear anything that doesn't fit their narrative."
posted by micketymoc at 6:55 PM on June 30, 2019 [2 favorites]

Curious to see whether that administrator ("Doesn't change a damn thing for me.") will keep their job.
posted by PhineasGage at 7:02 PM on June 30, 2019

Major Oberlin donors should be making this go away in the near future, applying pressure to the administration and to the lawyers for the bakery. My guess is it settles out for something like $12 million with one administrator fired. A chunk of the $12 million probably gets donated back to Oberlin to endow something the bakery supports.
posted by MattD at 8:22 PM on June 30, 2019