Source: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
An Ohio jury has awarded Gibson\u2019s Bakery <\/em>$11 million in damages in its libel suit against Oberlin College. This week, that same jury could award punitive damages that would increase the total amount of damages to\u00a0more than $30 million. This all stems from an incident in November 2016 when three African American Oberlin students entered Gibson\u2019s<\/em> and were suspected of trying to steal liquor. A physical altercation resulted. Although the students all eventually pled guilty, many Oberlin students believed that Gibson\u2019s<\/em> racially profiled those students and used excessive force against one of the students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Things got heated quickly. The Oberlin Student Senate passed a resolution stating: “Gibson’s has a history of racial profiling and discriminatory treatment of students and residents alike.” Students protested outside of the store. As described by Inside Higher Education<\/em>: \u201cstudents . . . organized a protest in which more than 100 people demonstrated outside the bakery. Students carried signs accusing the bakery owners of white supremacy or simply saying \u2018F-ck Gibson’s.\u2019 Protesters chanted \u2018Gibson’s is racist\u2019 and handed out pamphlets urging customers not to buy from the bakery and accused the bakery of a history of racism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gibson\u2019s<\/em> filed a complaint against Oberlin seeking millions of dollars in damages for libel. (It also asked for damages under more esoteric legal theories such as ‘tortious interference with contract’ that this post will not be discussing.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of Oberlin\u2019s defenses are dodgy. It claims, for example, that \ncalling Gibson\u2019s \u201cracist\u201d or claiming that Gibson\u2019s has a long history \nof racial profiling are mere opinions and, therefore, can\u2019t possibly be \nlibelous. It is difficult to think of a more harmful accusation against a\n business today than accusations of racism and the court rightly \nrejected that argument. Perhaps in another context that claim might make\n sense, but calling Gibson\u2019s racist and accusing it of engaging in \nracial profiling right after the incident with the three students is \nclearly accusing it of specific wrong-doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Oberlin\u2019s most important defense is far more meritorious.\u00a0(I should disclose here that I am an Oberlin alum.) The college should not be held legally responsible for statements made by students or faculty who are not speaking for the college as a whole. It is extremely dangerous to expect a college to censor its students, staff or faculty, especially about an important issue such as racism. Punishing the college with huge economic sanctions for a student protest or a student senate resolution does exactly that. This verdict, if it isn\u2019t reversed by an appellate court, provides a powerful incentive for universities to punish and restrict controversial speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gibson\u2019s<\/em> attorneys made numerous attempts to show that \nstatements by students and professors somehow represent statements by \nOberlin itself. None of these arguments are convincing. The student \nsenate is not controlled by the college and allowing the senate to post \nits resolution on college property is not tantamount to an official \nendorsement of that resolution. To hold otherwise would force colleges \nto proactively censor student governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gibson\u2019s<\/em> attorneys also made much of the fact that some \nOberlin administrators attended the protests. But, of course, Oberlin \nwould want to have a presence at the protests to ensure both student \nsafety and that students were respecting the law. This verdict tells \ncolleges that if they send administrators to watch out for student \nsafety they can be sued for millions of dollars. That is not in \nanybody\u2019s best interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, Oberlin did issue what could be described as an official statement about the incident. Then-President Marvin Krislov signed a public letter shortly after the incident stating: \u201cRegarding the incident at Gibson’s, we are deeply troubled because we have heard from students that there is more to the story than what has been generally reported. We will commit every resource to determining the full and true narrative, including exploring whether this is a pattern and not an isolated incident. We are dedicated to a campus and community that treats all faculty, staff and students fairly and without discrimination. We expect that our community businesses and friends share the same values and commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no reasonable interpretation of this official letter as a \nlibelous statement. Holding Oberlin College legally responsible for \nother statements such as flyers and resolutions written by students \ncreates a powerful incentive for censorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other statements that were used against Oberlin are statements by \nindividual faculty members, including a piece written by a retired \nprofessor. Allowing this verdict is a clear threat to academic freedom \nsince it tells colleges that they can be punished for allowing faculty \nto express controversial ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of this is to say that Oberlin or its students acted well. All \nthree of the students at the center of the controversy pled guilty and \nconceded at their sentencing hearing that they were not racially \nprofiled. The protests against Gibson\u2019s<\/em> were organized before there was any reasonable opportunity to ascertain the facts and were an ill-advised rush to judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, various Oberlin administrators demonstrated a lack of maturity and judgment in how they discussed the situation. \u00a0For example, an email from Oberlin College Vice President of Communications Ben Jones read: \u201cAll these idiots complaining about the college hurting a \u2018small local business\u2019 are conveniently leaving out their massive (relative to the town) conglomerate and price gouging on rents and parking and the predatory behavior towards most other local business. (Expletive) \u2019em.\u201d Meredith Raimondo, The Oberlin Vice President and Dean of students, texted other administrators about a faculty member who was critical of how the college handled the situation, writing, \u201c(Expletive) him, I\u2019d say unleash the students if I wasn\u2019t convinced this needs to be put behind us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, Oberlin is far from perfect. But to punish a college for not \nreining in its students, administrators, and faculty even when they are \nnot speaking on the college\u2019s behalf represents an extraordinary threat \nto academic freedom and to freedom of speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The danger is especially great here because this multi-million-dollar verdict is clearly part of the larger culture war going on in America. The jury pool, in this case, is from a community that is significantly more conservative than the college is. Fox News coverage gleefully tied the situation to the \u201cnationwide controversy surrounding universities and political correctness\u201d and contained a link to a story about canceling Columbus Day and quoted President Trump\u2019s denunciation of \u201cspeech codes, safe spaces and trigger warnings\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Libel law has a long history of being used as a weapon in culture \nwars, especially where race is involved. The leading Supreme Court libel\n case, New Times v. Sullivan, <\/em>involved a huge verdict by an Alabama jury against the New York Times <\/em>based\n upon some minor mistakes in an ad denouncing police treatment of Martin\n Luther King. The Court recognized that local juries could use libel \nawards to punish newspapers for views that were unpopular in the local \ncommunity. The same is certainly true for libel suits against colleges \nthat are politically out of step with their local communities. The libel\n law, in this case, is especially dangerous because it allows for \u201cper \nse\u201d damages\u2014the awarding of damages without proof of actual harm. That \nis in addition to punitive damages that are intended to punish the \ndefendant rather than to compensate the plaintiff for any actual loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This case isn\u2019t a situation of good guys versus bad guys. The \nprotestors seemed to prejudge the situation and a number of Oberlin \nadministrators showed poor judgment. Nevertheless, this verdict \nrepresents a very real threat to the future and mission of American \nuniversities, which are already under siege from numerous quarters. This\n will be even more so if punitive damages are piled on later this week. \nHopefully, the appellate courts will see this danger and reverse this \ndecision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: An Ohio jury has awarded Gibson\u2019s Bakery $11 million in damages in its libel suit against Oberlin College. This…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":539,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346],"tags":[502,664,659,658,663,662,660],"class_list":["post-538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college","tag-college","tag-gibsons-bakery","tag-libel","tag-million","tag-nationwide","tag-oberlin","tag-verdict"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gurukulgalaxy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gurukulgalaxy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gurukulgalaxy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gurukulgalaxy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gurukulgalaxy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gurukulgalaxy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":540,"href":"https:\/\/gurukulgalaxy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions\/540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gurukulgalaxy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gurukulgalaxy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gurukulgalaxy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gurukulgalaxy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}