11 ms·

O Oberlin, My Oberlin

162 points by jseliger 7y ago

nkurz 7y ago
Can anyone point to a parallel article that makes Oberlin College look like the "good guy" here? This article does a pretty convincing job of making them look ridiculous, but I presume there's another version from a different point of view that makes them look more heroic.
- DogOnTheWeb 7y ago
  This accounting, while pointed, aligns with most of the reporting and the facts of the case. I spent some months at Oberlin years ago in close contact with student organizers there. Nothing about this case is too surprising. It's a boring town with arguably the nation's most progressive politics and many students looking for something, anything, to organize around.
- awinder 7y ago
  I don’t know about you but I don’t meet a lot of good guys walking around paying off $44M in libel suit damages. I can’t in good consciousness link to any of the parallel viewpoints, but mostly they center on “chilling free speech effects” of the case, and the vast majority are college-associated interests posting. Apparently oberlin has trouble with the concept of objective reality, but I do not, this story has one bad actor.
- nyolfen 7y ago
  here is a more sympathetic account, which crucially does not dispute the facts of the case: https://www.toledoblade.com/local/education/2019/06/15/oberlin-college-gibsons-bakery-libel-lawsuit-race-community-free-speech/stories/20190614189 https://www.toledoblade.com/local/education/2019/06/15/oberl... i think you will have a hard time finding anything besides letters to alumni that make them sound like 'good guys', though
  - cobbzilla 7y ago
    From the Toledo article you linked: ———— Kameron Dunbar, also a fresh Oberlin graduate, said he had “uncomfortable experiences” along racial lines in Gibson’s, including times where he was asked to take off his backpack in the store when other, white customers weren’t asked to do the same. He remembers feeling “watched in ways that may not manifest the same for a white audience.” “I never wrote a review on Yelp, I didn’t write to Better Business Bureau — I just decided not to patronize there anymore,” Mr. Dunbar said. ————— This article and Mr. Dunbar’s potential bias are discussed in TFA, with the clincher: “Neither the New York Times, nor Rolling Stone, nor any of the other media outlets that quoted Dunbar noted that he worked alongside Jonathan Aladin in the Office of the Student Treasurer and was a paid blogger for Oberlin’s Office of Communications.” Not exactly star witness material, but precisely the kind of person who might subtly push an agenda in the media, facts be damned.
    - SilasX 7y ago
      That dynamic reminds me of Scott Alexander’s toxoplasmosis of rage article[1]. That, even when there’s a legitimate grievance, activists make a cause out of the least sympathetic case, like Michael Brown for police brutality against black people. Let’s assume the Gibson store does racially profile customers, and does it in a way that doesn’t quite bubble up to the arrest statistics. Even so, why would you make your “hill to die on” out of a case where their suspicions were majestically justified, where the customer was not only shoplifting, but willing to assault the shopkeeper and kick him while he’s down? [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage...
- jdietrich 7y ago
  >I presume there's another version from a different point of view that makes them look more heroic. Comment is free, but facts are sacred. The facts of the case can only be interpreted to make Oberlin look heroic if the Gibsons were in fact racist; a jury found that they weren't. If we accept that the jury were correct in that judgement, then the actions of Oberlin are inexcusable - the college administration were actively complicit in libelling the Gibsons. I see no reason to doubt that the jury came to a conclusion that was justified by the evidence. If we accept the facts of the case, what possible alternative explanation is there? That it's OK to try and ruin a business based on the mere suspicion that they might possibly be racist? That accusations of racism should be believed uncritically, regardless of the evidence? That the law of libel is an unjust restriction of speech and that anyone should be able to make false accusations with impunity? I'm genuinely looking for a steelman argument, but I can't find one. The closest I could find to a defence of Oberlin are the articles below, which argue that a) Oberlin should not be culpable for merely failing to rein in the actions of students and faculty and b) accusing someone of being racist is merely an opinion, so cannot by definition be libellous. On the first point, I think the evidence is clear that senior administrators acting in an official capacity were far more than passive bystanders. On the second point, while an accusation of racism in the general case may possibly be mere opinion, an accusation that the Gibsons engaged in racial profiling is actionable. https://www.forbes.com/sites/evangerstmann/2019/06/12/the-11-million-dollar-libel-verdict-against-oberlin-college-is-a-threat-to-colleges-nationwide/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/evangerstmann/2019/06/12/the-11... https://academeblog.org/2019/06/13/the-dangerous-defamation-judgment-against-oberlin-college/ https://academeblog.org/2019/06/13/the-dangerous-defamation-...
  - mushufasa 7y ago
    [I'm removing this because I don't think this is a productive discussion, and I shouldn't have commented to begin with]
    - speedplane 7y ago
      > the legal definition of racism is a small subset of the colloquial definition and the academic definition There is no legal definition of racism. There are legal definitions of unlawful discrimination > I wouldn't take the jury's decision here as a 'fact' You don't have to agree with the jury, but the very purpose of juries is to decide "facts". If a jury decides that something is true, then legally, it is true, even if you personally disagree. Giving such weighty authority to a collection of people from society is not a bug of the system, it's a feature.
- mushufasa 7y ago
  Here is the perspective from the student newspaper: https://oberlinreview.org/18975/opinions/media-coverage-of-gibsons-verdict-misses-the-mark/ https://oberlinreview.org/18975/opinions/media-coverage-of-g...
  - high_derivative 7y ago
    Strikes me as pretty ironic that student groups which are most active in no-platforming efforts now make a free speech argument.
    - goatinaboat 7y ago
      Your free speech is violence and their violence is free speech. That’s always how it is with these groups.
- jccalhoun 7y ago
  I've read a few accounts about what happened and all of them seem to make it clear that the faculty and students involved were wrong. I'm a college professor who tries to be a good ally and while I would suspect that race had something to do with what happened, everything I've read makes this seem like a case of mob mentality running wild. That being said, as the article does state, it seems like only a small number of students and faculty were involved in the protests. I am, however, suspicious that there have been so very many editorials about this when so many people in conservative circles love to talk about "far left academia" who are "stiffing free speech" and are taking the terrible actions of a small number of people as representative of all of academia.
  - asciident 7y ago
    I feel like blaming rogue actors in an institution or group is a common tactic in any polarizing situation, and happens in different degrees. High-level members at the Catholic Church may say the same for their pedophile priests, or price manipulators at Enron, or greedy scammers on wall street, or when politicians get embroiled in a scandal. There is a certain extent at which one might say it's institutionalized, in which case the bad actors can no longer be excused as only a few bad actors, but part of a system that enabled it. In all those cases (and this one with Oberlin), many more people were aware of what was going on, but chose to turn the other way or even silently go along with it. So this seems "worse" than a case where an employee is acting on their own accord while hiding it from the institution. If we take a position that academia is not at fault because of these more extreme bad actors, then I don't see how we can be upset at the Catholic Church, Enron executives, conservatives, etc.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > I am, however, suspicious that there have been so very many editorials about this when so many people in conservative circles love to talk about "far left academia" who are "stiffing free speech" and are taking the terrible actions of a small number of people as representative of all of academia. I'm sure that's not what you meant, but this sounds like you're suggesting it shouldn't be reported on (in depth) because it gives critics ammunition.
  - 7y ago
- Lazare 7y ago
  I've seen a couple, but they all rely very strongly on ignoring the testimony that came out in trial, the police reports, and especially the internal Oberlin emails, which were very damning. I think the most pro-Oberlin spin you can get that doesn't completely ignore the factual record would be something like: "The Gibsons did nothing wrong, Aladin and his friends were shoplifitng and did assault Allyn Gibson, and the resulting student protests were utterly groundless. However, Oberlin College itself was merely a hapless bystander. The internal emails, although they sounded terrible, were taken out of context; a small number of administrators may have mispoken, but phrases like "unleash the students" were utter hyperbole. The guilty verdict against the college hinged very strongly on the extent that Raimondo was directing the protests and, especially, to the extent that she was distributing the flyers, and there was a legitimate factual disputes about this. Yes, a jury determined that Raimondo had distributed the fliers, and her contention that someone had merely passed her a flyer which she had unwittingly passed on to someone else, perhaps without realising the content, and certainly without endorsing it was not deemed credible. Still, it's not implausible that the jury got it wrong, and Raimondo was right. In that case, Oberlin was merely guilty of incompetence and poor phrasing in internal emails, neither of which is strictly speaking a tort." I don't entirely agree with that take, but it's plausible. A lot hinged on the actions of Raimondo during the protests. Had she simply avoided touching the pamphlets (and even better, not been there with a bull horn at all), presumably all the events would have still taken place (the boycotts, the harassment, the protests), but Oberlin wouldn't have been found liable. I mean, that doesn't make them the "good guy", but maybe they're not the Machiavellian villians of the piece, but just idiots, and unfairly were hit by the guilty verdict. That's about as good as you can hope for I think. :)
justaguyonline 7y ago
Never heard of this incident before, very interesting. What I found the most interesting was the fact that the original arrests happen the day after the election of Trump. That actually explained a lot to me about why a young man who was the student treasurer of the college would do something like this and why the campus would react they way they did. (though college students tend to shoplift a lot more than you'd expect in my experience) Unfortunately, people have a way of acting out their anger and fear about things that are to big or to far away for them to touch on their local communities. Sometimes twisting parts of them them into mistaken effigies of larger events or people they truefully have no connection to.
- PopePompus 7y ago
  But one would hope that the college officials, who were fully adults and had years of experience dealing with the Gibson family, would try to temper passions rather than throwing fuel on the fire. I hope Oberlin has to pay every penny the jury awarded, though I doubt it will.
  - justaguyonline 7y ago
    And I hope in the future that we all do what Oberlin should of done here. To take a step back when the news makes us angry or sad, when we hear about someone far away violating principles we hold dear. By being angry in the here and now we inevitably hurt structures and people that have done nothing wrong and efforts to direct that energy back towards the violators often do the same to whatever distant place they live in. I think it's important to note that the biases Oberlin showed are something we can all do if we're not careful.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      > By being angry in the here and now we inevitably hurt structures and people that have done nothing wrong and efforts to direct that energy back towards the violators often do the same to whatever distant place they live in. How do we hurt "structures and people" that have done nothing wrong by, for example, being angry at Oberlin's administrators in the here and now? > I think it's important to note that the biases Oberlin showed are something we can all do if we're not careful. We can all do any number of things, but to be this committed to knowingly being wrong out of tribalist ideology, that's not that common.
aklemm 7y ago
A school like Oberlin in a town like Oberlin needs to have multiple off-campus social justice trips per year so these students have perspective and real opportunity to try on their newly-educated energy.
- luckylion 7y ago
  Interesting idea. If you immersed them in a game where they could protest & fight injustices, would they be less prone to looking for things to protest irl? I mean, besides "not having time to protest because I'm playing this game".
cameldrv 7y ago
What a shame to see such a venerable institution taken over by such an antisocial group of people and ideology.
- jcims 7y ago
  Did a bit of contract work there over the years, they were one of my favorite customers. The town is sleepy and the campus is quaint with some absolutely beautiful buildings. The staff there were always a joy to collaborate with, I was pretty surprised the first time I heard about this issue and just wanted to say that it definitely doesn't reflect my experience there or represent the folks I met.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  Sadly, the very attitude that makes it such an attractive institution also makes it a vulnerable one. People don't like to ask what it takes to protect an institution from passive aggression, because they increasingly don't like the answer.
rdtsc 7y ago
> Interim assistant dean of students: "I hope we rain fire and brimstone on that store" > "Fuck him. I’d say unleash the students if I wasn’t convinced this needs to be put behind us." Oh wow. That's a very interesting and scary quote. They think the students are their little minions to brainwash and "unleash" on someone. Are these people still employed there? Because it would seem they have severely damaged the reputation of the school for years to come. I wonder also how the students who participated in the protests feel. Did they realize they were manipulated, do they regret showing up or even graduating from the school altogether. > “Think one person can change the world? So do we,” has been Oberlin’s official motto for quite some time. Well these administrators did change the world, so the motto is true. The only problem is, it doesn't seem like they changed it for the better.
- mirimir 7y ago
  So far, Dean Raimondo is still there. https://heavy.com/news/2019/06/meredith-raimondo/ https://heavy.com/news/2019/06/meredith-raimondo/ Edit: There's apparently no legal advantage to firing her: > Despite being found guilty of libel, Meredith Raimondo won’t have to pay any of the $44 million settlement out of pocket. The state jury ordered the college to pay the entirety of the settlement. It’s unclear if Raimondo will remain on staff moving forward after the court decision on Thursday.
  - Vaslo 7y ago
    Wow, talk about a moral hazard - salaried employees can break laws that fine in the millions and there is no repercussions for the individual. Instead, endowments and tuition pay, despite the fact those paying or endowing don’t share those opinions, or at least not to the point they would break libel law.
    - asciident 7y ago
      Isn't this the same for companies, government agencies, hospitals, churches, etc.? I'm not sure what would be different in any institution where someone is acting as an employee.
luckylion 7y ago
Will it hurt the college? I suppose it's too early for statistics to show any trends, but since there's a (seemingly) large "SJW customer base" this does appeal to, it's not obvious (to me at least) that their enrollment numbers will plummet. The same goes for donations: their main donors are likely not conservative but very liberal, and again, they aren't positioning themselves against them.
bobthechef 7y ago
Perhaps cutting any government cheese flowing into Oberlin would teach those savages posing as a university some manners.
RickJWagner 7y ago
IN a good future, Oberlin will erect a monument to the incident and be resolved to be a sensible institution devoted to real education.
thisguyuknow 7y ago
I guess privilege isn't about race after all, power too easily becomes abuse, and bullies always meet their match.
mynameishere 7y ago
Shrug. Liberal robot factory. Might as well act shocked seeing a Chevy in Detroit. Get used to it, though. The left has always, always, been about the boot in the face. Always.
brownkonas 7y ago
The statement posted by Dave Gibson is quite moving: https://www.gibsonsbakeryandcandy.com/ https://www.gibsonsbakeryandcandy.com/ Hopefully, Oberlin ceases their dispute as soon as possible.

162 points by jseliger 7y ago

Can anyone point to a parallel article that makes Oberlin College look like the "good guy" here? This article does a pretty convincing job of making them look ridiculous, but I presume there's another version from a different point of view that makes them look more heroic.

DogOnTheWeb 7y ago
This accounting, while pointed, aligns with most of the reporting and the facts of the case. I spent some months at Oberlin years ago in close contact with student organizers there. Nothing about this case is too surprising. It's a boring town with arguably the nation's most progressive politics and many students looking for something, anything, to organize around.
awinder 7y ago
I don’t know about you but I don’t meet a lot of good guys walking around paying off $44M in libel suit damages. I can’t in good consciousness link to any of the parallel viewpoints, but mostly they center on “chilling free speech effects” of the case, and the vast majority are college-associated interests posting. Apparently oberlin has trouble with the concept of objective reality, but I do not, this story has one bad actor.
nyolfen 7y ago
here is a more sympathetic account, which crucially does not dispute the facts of the case: https://www.toledoblade.com/local/education/2019/06/15/oberlin-college-gibsons-bakery-libel-lawsuit-race-community-free-speech/stories/20190614189 https://www.toledoblade.com/local/education/2019/06/15/oberl... i think you will have a hard time finding anything besides letters to alumni that make them sound like 'good guys', though
- cobbzilla 7y ago
  From the Toledo article you linked: ———— Kameron Dunbar, also a fresh Oberlin graduate, said he had “uncomfortable experiences” along racial lines in Gibson’s, including times where he was asked to take off his backpack in the store when other, white customers weren’t asked to do the same. He remembers feeling “watched in ways that may not manifest the same for a white audience.” “I never wrote a review on Yelp, I didn’t write to Better Business Bureau — I just decided not to patronize there anymore,” Mr. Dunbar said. ————— This article and Mr. Dunbar’s potential bias are discussed in TFA, with the clincher: “Neither the New York Times, nor Rolling Stone, nor any of the other media outlets that quoted Dunbar noted that he worked alongside Jonathan Aladin in the Office of the Student Treasurer and was a paid blogger for Oberlin’s Office of Communications.” Not exactly star witness material, but precisely the kind of person who might subtly push an agenda in the media, facts be damned.
  - SilasX 7y ago
    That dynamic reminds me of Scott Alexander’s toxoplasmosis of rage article[1]. That, even when there’s a legitimate grievance, activists make a cause out of the least sympathetic case, like Michael Brown for police brutality against black people. Let’s assume the Gibson store does racially profile customers, and does it in a way that doesn’t quite bubble up to the arrest statistics. Even so, why would you make your “hill to die on” out of a case where their suspicions were majestically justified, where the customer was not only shoplifting, but willing to assault the shopkeeper and kick him while he’s down? [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage...
jdietrich 7y ago
>I presume there's another version from a different point of view that makes them look more heroic. Comment is free, but facts are sacred. The facts of the case can only be interpreted to make Oberlin look heroic if the Gibsons were in fact racist; a jury found that they weren't. If we accept that the jury were correct in that judgement, then the actions of Oberlin are inexcusable - the college administration were actively complicit in libelling the Gibsons. I see no reason to doubt that the jury came to a conclusion that was justified by the evidence. If we accept the facts of the case, what possible alternative explanation is there? That it's OK to try and ruin a business based on the mere suspicion that they might possibly be racist? That accusations of racism should be believed uncritically, regardless of the evidence? That the law of libel is an unjust restriction of speech and that anyone should be able to make false accusations with impunity? I'm genuinely looking for a steelman argument, but I can't find one. The closest I could find to a defence of Oberlin are the articles below, which argue that a) Oberlin should not be culpable for merely failing to rein in the actions of students and faculty and b) accusing someone of being racist is merely an opinion, so cannot by definition be libellous. On the first point, I think the evidence is clear that senior administrators acting in an official capacity were far more than passive bystanders. On the second point, while an accusation of racism in the general case may possibly be mere opinion, an accusation that the Gibsons engaged in racial profiling is actionable. https://www.forbes.com/sites/evangerstmann/2019/06/12/the-11-million-dollar-libel-verdict-against-oberlin-college-is-a-threat-to-colleges-nationwide/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/evangerstmann/2019/06/12/the-11... https://academeblog.org/2019/06/13/the-dangerous-defamation-judgment-against-oberlin-college/ https://academeblog.org/2019/06/13/the-dangerous-defamation-...
- mushufasa 7y ago
  [I'm removing this because I don't think this is a productive discussion, and I shouldn't have commented to begin with]
  - speedplane 7y ago
    > the legal definition of racism is a small subset of the colloquial definition and the academic definition There is no legal definition of racism. There are legal definitions of unlawful discrimination > I wouldn't take the jury's decision here as a 'fact' You don't have to agree with the jury, but the very purpose of juries is to decide "facts". If a jury decides that something is true, then legally, it is true, even if you personally disagree. Giving such weighty authority to a collection of people from society is not a bug of the system, it's a feature.
mushufasa 7y ago
Here is the perspective from the student newspaper: https://oberlinreview.org/18975/opinions/media-coverage-of-gibsons-verdict-misses-the-mark/ https://oberlinreview.org/18975/opinions/media-coverage-of-g...
- high_derivative 7y ago
  Strikes me as pretty ironic that student groups which are most active in no-platforming efforts now make a free speech argument.
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    Your free speech is violence and their violence is free speech. That’s always how it is with these groups.
jccalhoun 7y ago
I've read a few accounts about what happened and all of them seem to make it clear that the faculty and students involved were wrong. I'm a college professor who tries to be a good ally and while I would suspect that race had something to do with what happened, everything I've read makes this seem like a case of mob mentality running wild. That being said, as the article does state, it seems like only a small number of students and faculty were involved in the protests. I am, however, suspicious that there have been so very many editorials about this when so many people in conservative circles love to talk about "far left academia" who are "stiffing free speech" and are taking the terrible actions of a small number of people as representative of all of academia.
- asciident 7y ago
  I feel like blaming rogue actors in an institution or group is a common tactic in any polarizing situation, and happens in different degrees. High-level members at the Catholic Church may say the same for their pedophile priests, or price manipulators at Enron, or greedy scammers on wall street, or when politicians get embroiled in a scandal. There is a certain extent at which one might say it's institutionalized, in which case the bad actors can no longer be excused as only a few bad actors, but part of a system that enabled it. In all those cases (and this one with Oberlin), many more people were aware of what was going on, but chose to turn the other way or even silently go along with it. So this seems "worse" than a case where an employee is acting on their own accord while hiding it from the institution. If we take a position that academia is not at fault because of these more extreme bad actors, then I don't see how we can be upset at the Catholic Church, Enron executives, conservatives, etc.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > I am, however, suspicious that there have been so very many editorials about this when so many people in conservative circles love to talk about "far left academia" who are "stiffing free speech" and are taking the terrible actions of a small number of people as representative of all of academia. I'm sure that's not what you meant, but this sounds like you're suggesting it shouldn't be reported on (in depth) because it gives critics ammunition.
- 7y ago
Lazare 7y ago
I've seen a couple, but they all rely very strongly on ignoring the testimony that came out in trial, the police reports, and especially the internal Oberlin emails, which were very damning. I think the most pro-Oberlin spin you can get that doesn't completely ignore the factual record would be something like: "The Gibsons did nothing wrong, Aladin and his friends were shoplifitng and did assault Allyn Gibson, and the resulting student protests were utterly groundless. However, Oberlin College itself was merely a hapless bystander. The internal emails, although they sounded terrible, were taken out of context; a small number of administrators may have mispoken, but phrases like "unleash the students" were utter hyperbole. The guilty verdict against the college hinged very strongly on the extent that Raimondo was directing the protests and, especially, to the extent that she was distributing the flyers, and there was a legitimate factual disputes about this. Yes, a jury determined that Raimondo had distributed the fliers, and her contention that someone had merely passed her a flyer which she had unwittingly passed on to someone else, perhaps without realising the content, and certainly without endorsing it was not deemed credible. Still, it's not implausible that the jury got it wrong, and Raimondo was right. In that case, Oberlin was merely guilty of incompetence and poor phrasing in internal emails, neither of which is strictly speaking a tort." I don't entirely agree with that take, but it's plausible. A lot hinged on the actions of Raimondo during the protests. Had she simply avoided touching the pamphlets (and even better, not been there with a bull horn at all), presumably all the events would have still taken place (the boycotts, the harassment, the protests), but Oberlin wouldn't have been found liable. I mean, that doesn't make them the "good guy", but maybe they're not the Machiavellian villians of the piece, but just idiots, and unfairly were hit by the guilty verdict. That's about as good as you can hope for I think. :)

justaguyonline 7y ago

Never heard of this incident before, very interesting. What I found the most interesting was the fact that the original arrests happen the day after the election of Trump. That actually explained a lot to me about why a young man who was the student treasurer of the college would do something like this and why the campus would react they way they did. (though college students tend to shoplift a lot more than you'd expect in my experience) Unfortunately, people have a way of acting out their anger and fear about things that are to big or to far away for them to touch on their local communities. Sometimes twisting parts of them them into mistaken effigies of larger events or people they truefully have no connection to.

PopePompus 7y ago
But one would hope that the college officials, who were fully adults and had years of experience dealing with the Gibson family, would try to temper passions rather than throwing fuel on the fire. I hope Oberlin has to pay every penny the jury awarded, though I doubt it will.
- justaguyonline 7y ago
  And I hope in the future that we all do what Oberlin should of done here. To take a step back when the news makes us angry or sad, when we hear about someone far away violating principles we hold dear. By being angry in the here and now we inevitably hurt structures and people that have done nothing wrong and efforts to direct that energy back towards the violators often do the same to whatever distant place they live in. I think it's important to note that the biases Oberlin showed are something we can all do if we're not careful.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > By being angry in the here and now we inevitably hurt structures and people that have done nothing wrong and efforts to direct that energy back towards the violators often do the same to whatever distant place they live in. How do we hurt "structures and people" that have done nothing wrong by, for example, being angry at Oberlin's administrators in the here and now? > I think it's important to note that the biases Oberlin showed are something we can all do if we're not careful. We can all do any number of things, but to be this committed to knowingly being wrong out of tribalist ideology, that's not that common.

aklemm 7y ago

A school like Oberlin in a town like Oberlin needs to have multiple off-campus social justice trips per year so these students have perspective and real opportunity to try on their newly-educated energy.

luckylion 7y ago
Interesting idea. If you immersed them in a game where they could protest & fight injustices, would they be less prone to looking for things to protest irl? I mean, besides "not having time to protest because I'm playing this game".

cameldrv 7y ago

What a shame to see such a venerable institution taken over by such an antisocial group of people and ideology.

jcims 7y ago
Did a bit of contract work there over the years, they were one of my favorite customers. The town is sleepy and the campus is quaint with some absolutely beautiful buildings. The staff there were always a joy to collaborate with, I was pretty surprised the first time I heard about this issue and just wanted to say that it definitely doesn't reflect my experience there or represent the folks I met.
microcolonel 7y ago
Sadly, the very attitude that makes it such an attractive institution also makes it a vulnerable one. People don't like to ask what it takes to protect an institution from passive aggression, because they increasingly don't like the answer.

rdtsc 7y ago

> Interim assistant dean of students: "I hope we rain fire and brimstone on that store" > "Fuck him. I’d say unleash the students if I wasn’t convinced this needs to be put behind us." Oh wow. That's a very interesting and scary quote. They think the students are their little minions to brainwash and "unleash" on someone. Are these people still employed there? Because it would seem they have severely damaged the reputation of the school for years to come. I wonder also how the students who participated in the protests feel. Did they realize they were manipulated, do they regret showing up or even graduating from the school altogether. > “Think one person can change the world? So do we,” has been Oberlin’s official motto for quite some time. Well these administrators did change the world, so the motto is true. The only problem is, it doesn't seem like they changed it for the better.

mirimir 7y ago
So far, Dean Raimondo is still there. https://heavy.com/news/2019/06/meredith-raimondo/ https://heavy.com/news/2019/06/meredith-raimondo/ Edit: There's apparently no legal advantage to firing her: > Despite being found guilty of libel, Meredith Raimondo won’t have to pay any of the $44 million settlement out of pocket. The state jury ordered the college to pay the entirety of the settlement. It’s unclear if Raimondo will remain on staff moving forward after the court decision on Thursday.
- Vaslo 7y ago
  Wow, talk about a moral hazard - salaried employees can break laws that fine in the millions and there is no repercussions for the individual. Instead, endowments and tuition pay, despite the fact those paying or endowing don’t share those opinions, or at least not to the point they would break libel law.
  - asciident 7y ago
    Isn't this the same for companies, government agencies, hospitals, churches, etc.? I'm not sure what would be different in any institution where someone is acting as an employee.

luckylion 7y ago

Will it hurt the college? I suppose it's too early for statistics to show any trends, but since there's a (seemingly) large "SJW customer base" this does appeal to, it's not obvious (to me at least) that their enrollment numbers will plummet. The same goes for donations: their main donors are likely not conservative but very liberal, and again, they aren't positioning themselves against them.

bobthechef 7y ago

Perhaps cutting any government cheese flowing into Oberlin would teach those savages posing as a university some manners.

RickJWagner 7y ago

IN a good future, Oberlin will erect a monument to the incident and be resolved to be a sensible institution devoted to real education.

thisguyuknow 7y ago

I guess privilege isn't about race after all, power too easily becomes abuse, and bullies always meet their match.

mynameishere 7y ago

Shrug. Liberal robot factory. Might as well act shocked seeing a Chevy in Detroit. Get used to it, though. The left has always, always, been about the boot in the face. Always.

brownkonas 7y ago

The statement posted by Dave Gibson is quite moving: https://www.gibsonsbakeryandcandy.com/ https://www.gibsonsbakeryandcandy.com/ Hopefully, Oberlin ceases their dispute as soon as possible.