Racial dispute at beloved bakery roils liberal college town in Ohio

[AUDub 11,131]

I still can't get over the narrative that Oberlin had the gall to suggest maintaining their business relationship with the Bakery would mean letting shoplifters get away with it. That's contemptible thuggery, and I glad they got slapped for it. 

[TitanTiger 20,471]

On 9/5/2022 at 10:36 AM, AUDub said:

I still can't get over the narrative that Oberlin had the gall to suggest maintaining their business relationship with the Bakery would mean letting shoplifters get away with it. That's contemptible thuggery, and I glad they got slapped for it. 

Holy hell...what?

[TitanTiger 20,471]

A resounding victory for the bakery, as it should have been.  Crazy to me though that rather than take a settlement for $15-20M less and sign a 10-year contract for baked goods, they chose to simply pay out the full amount awarded in cash.  

After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59 Million to a Local Bakery

Oberlin College, known as a bastion of progressive politics, said on Thursday that it would pay $36.59 million to a local bakery that said it had been defamed and falsely accused of racism after a worker caught a Black student shoplifting.

That 2016 dispute with Gibson’s Bakery resulted in a yearslong legal fight and resonated beyond the small college town in Ohio, turning into a bitter national debate over criminal justice, race, free speech and whether the college had failed to hold students to account.

The decision by the college’s board of trustees, announced Thursday, came nine days after the Ohio Supreme Court had declined to hear the college’s appeal of a lower-court ruling.

“Truth matters,” Lee E. Plakas, the lawyer for the Gibson family, said in an email Thursday. “David, supported by a principled community, can still beat Goliath.”

In a statement, Oberlin said that “this matter has been painful for everyone.” It added, “We hope that the end of the litigation will begin the healing of our entire community.”

The college acknowledged that the size of the judgment, which includes damages and interest, was “significant.” But it said that “with careful financial planning,” including insurance, it could be paid “without impacting our academic and student experience.” Oberlin has a robust endowment of nearly $1 billion.

The case hinged on whether Oberlin officials had defamed the bakery by supporting students who accused it of racial profiling, and the verdict, essentially finding that the officials had done so, may make other colleges and universities think twice about joining student causes, legal experts said.

“Such a large amount is certainly going to make institutions around the country take notice, and to be very careful about the difference between supporting students and being part of a cause,” said Neal Hutchens, a professor of higher education at the University of Kentucky. “It wasn’t so much the students speaking; it’s the institution accepting that statement uncritically. Sometimes you have to take a step back.”

Professor Hutchens said it also made a difference that Gibson’s was a small family business, not a large multinational corporation like Walmart or Amazon, which would be better able to sustain the economic losses from such a protest.

Oberlin is a small liberal arts college with a reputation for turning out students who are strong in the arts and humanities and for its progressive politics, leaning heavily on its history of being a stop on the Underground Railroad as well as one of the first colleges to admit Black students. Tuition at Oberlin is more than $61,000 a year, and the overall cost of attendance tops $80,000 a year. The college is also very much part of the town, which is economically dependent on the school and its students. The bakery, across the street from the college, sold donuts and chocolates, and was considered a must-eat part of the Oberlin dining experience.

The incident that started the dispute unfolded in November 2016, when a student  tried to buy a bottle of wine with a fake ID while shoplifting two more bottles by hiding them under his coat, according to court papers.

Allyn Gibson, a son and grandson of the owners, who is white, chased the student out onto the street, where two of his friends, also Black students at Oberlin, joined in the scuffle.  The students later pleaded guilty to various charges.

That altercation led to two days of protests; several hundred students gathered in front of the bakery, accusing it of having racially profiled its customers, according to court papers.

The lawsuit filed by Gibson’s contended that Oberlin had defamed the bakery when the dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, and other members of the administration took sides in the dispute by attending the protests, where fliers, peppered with capital letters, urged a boycott of the bakery and said that it was a “RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT OF RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION.”

Gibson’s also presented testimony that Oberlin had stopped ordering from the bakery but had offered to restore its business if charges were dropped against the three students or if the bakery gave students accused of shoplifting special treatment, which it refused to do.

The store said that the college’s stance had driven customers away, for fear of being perceived as supporting an establishment that the college had tarred as racist.

Oberlin disputed some aspects of that account and countered that students were exercising their First Amendment right to free speech. The administration said it had only been trying to keep the peace. The college’s court papers also said that Allyn Gibson was trained in martial arts and had brought public criticism on the store by chasing the student out of the store and into public view.

In the spring, a three-judge panel of the Ohio Court of Appeals confirmed the jury’s finding, after a six-week trial, that Oberlin was liable for libel, intentional infliction of emotional distress and intentional interference with a business relationship — that it had effectively defamed the business by siding with the protesters. The original jury award was even higher, at $44 million in punitive and compensatory damages, which was reduced by a judge. The latest amount consists of about $5 million in compensatory damages, nearly $20 million in punitive damages, $6.5 million in attorney’s fees and almost $5 million in interest.

In its ruling, the Court of Appeals agreed that students had a right to protest. But the court said that the flier and a related student senate resolution — which said that the store had a history of racial profiling — were not constitutionally protected opinion.

“The message to other colleges is to have the intestinal fortitude to be the adult in the room,” Mr. Plakas said in an interview after the jury had awarded damages in June 2019.

After the 2019 jury award against Oberlin, Carmen Twillie Ambar, the college president, said that the case was far from over and that “none of this will sway us from our core values.” The college said then that the bakery’s “archaic chase-and-detain policy regarding suspected shoplifters was the catalyst for the protests.”

But in its statement on Thursday, Oberlin hinted that the protracted and bitter fight had undermined its relationship with the people and businesses in the surrounding community.

“We value our relationship with the city of Oberlin,” its statement said. “And we look forward to continuing our support of and partnership with local businesses as we work together to help our city thrive.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/us/oberlin-bakery-lawsuit.html

[AUDub 11,131]

On 9/7/2022 at 3:11 PM, TitanTiger said:

Holy hell...what?

Well the article you linked had it in there lol. 

"Gibson’s also presented testimony that Oberlin had stopped ordering from the bakery but had offered to restore its business if charges were dropped against the three students or if the bakery gave students accused of shoplifting special treatment, which it refused to do."

[TitanTiger 20,471]

12 minutes ago, AUDub said:

Well the article you linked had it in there lol. 

"Gibson’s also presented testimony that Oberlin had stopped ordering from the bakery but had offered to restore its business if charges were dropped against the three students or if the bakery gave students accused of shoplifting special treatment, which it refused to do."

I see now.  

Serious question:  Is Oberlin run by morons?

[AUDub 11,131]

11 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

I see now.  

Serious question:  Is Oberlin run by morons?

No one is more moronic than those with a misplaced sense of moral superiority lol.

[DKW 86 7,410]

The bakery is a ruined business. It will never be back to normal and still gets protesters. 

They are permanently damaged, almost certainly to the end of the business. 

The dad and the son that confronted the shoplifters are both now dead. 

The family takes the cash and runs away from the toxic cesspool of Oberlin.

[AUDub 11,131]

2 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

The bakery is a ruined business. It will never be back to normal and still gets protesters. 

They are permanently damaged, almost certainly to the end of the business. 

The dad and the son that confronted the shoplifters are both now dead. 

The family takes the cash and runs away from the toxic cesspool of Oberlin.

They'll be fine. 25m is a pretty good sum imo lol. Go retire in the Caribbean or something.

Oberlin's behavior in this case was so outrageous that if you told me that someone in the college administration was a right-wing plant setting out to confirm every stereotype about "wokeism," then I'd believe you.

[Auburn85 432]

https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/lorain-county/oberlin-college-completes-payment-gibsons-bakery-defamation-case/95-ff4da16c-37d1-433f-bc1b-3e1ee219da29

 

Quote

 

Gibson's Bakery receives complete payment of $36.59 million from Oberlin College in defamation suit

Author: Dave "Dino" DeNatale, Lindsay Buckingham, Associated Press

Published: 9:19 PM EST December 15, 2022

Updated: 6:14 AM EST December 16, 2022

 

OBERLIN, Ohio — Just over six years after a shoplifting incident exploded into a nationwide controversy, Gibson's Bakery has received all of the $36.59 million owed to it by Oberlin College.

 

"We can confirm that all funds have been disbursed and that the family is continuing with the process of rebuilding Gibson’s Bakery for the next generations," says Brandon McHugh, attorney for the Gibsons told 3News on Thursday.

In September, the Ohio Supreme Court declined to hear Oberlin's appeal of the $25 million judgment awarded to Gibson's, who had accused the college of ruining their business by branding them as racists.

 

"We are disappointed by the Court’s decision. However, this does not diminish our respect for the law and the integrity of our legal system," Oberlin College stated in a news release after the court's decision. "This matter has been painful for everyone. We hope that the end of the litigation will begin the healing of our entire community."

 

According to the college, the total amount paid to Gibson's represents the judgement, plus attorney fees and accumulated interest. "Therefore no further payments are required."

 

In November of 2016, Allyn Gibson, son of co-owner David Gibson, chased and tackled a Black male student he suspected of having stolen a bottle of wine at the store. Two Black female students who were with the male student tried to intervene. All three were arrested and later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges.

 

The shoplifting arrests led to protests outside Gibson’s Bakery where flyers were handed out, some by an Oberlin College vice president and dean of students, accusing the Gibsons of being racist. A Student Senate resolution condemning the Gibsons was emailed to all students and was posted in a display case at school’s student center, where it remained for a year. Oberlin College officials ordered its campus food provider to stop buying bakery items from Gibson’s.

 

"It's definitely about right and wrong. And to be quite frank, the three students that shoplifted, they admitted their crimes," adds McHugh. "It was Oberlin College that could never admit that what they did was wrong."

 

Gibson's Bakery filed a lawsuit in November of 2017, accusing the college and the dean of slandering Gibson's as a "racist establishment" and taking steps to destroy the family's livelihood.

"We lost so much of the business after the protests that we weren't getting the business," recalls co-owner Lorna Gibson. "And so I couldn't afford to keep the shelves filled. And then when the pandemic hit, it was like the perfect storm that didn't help either."

 

A Lorain County jury awarded the Gibsons $44 million in compensatory and punitive damages in June 2019 after a five week trial. A judge later reduced the award to $25 million.

 

"The size of this verdict is significant," Oberlin College added in its statement. "However, our careful financial planning, which includes insurance coverage, means that we can satisfy our legal obligation without impacting our academic and student experience."

 

David Gibson died in November 2019 at age 65. His father, Allyn Gibson, died in February at the age of 93.

 

"We've always been here. We've always treated everybody properly and that's all we just wanted. That's all we wanted from the start just to continue on our lives and keep the store going," Lorna Gibson adds.

 

Did any students get expelled?

Did any staff get fired?

 

Oberlin dean of students and vice president Meredith Raimondo wasn't fired despite helping lead the charge in the defaming protests outside the bakery. In fact, she left on her own free will and is now at a college in Georgia.

As far as I know, students who made defaming flyers and participated in defaming protests were never punished.

 

Edited December 28, 2022 by Auburn85

[SLAG-91 1,483]

...and now Oberlin's insurance providers are refusing to cover the payment to Gibson's...hmmm.  

Oberlin suing insurers

As implied in the article, it's strange days when you find yourself even remotely sympathetic to an insurance company.