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In NPR interview, Oberlin College President repeats false claim it was “held liable for the speech of its students”

In NPR interview, Oberlin College President repeats false claim it was “held liable for the speech of its students”

Wrongly portraying itself as the victimized defender of student free speech reflects an administration ill prepared to handle an existential crisis of confidence and credibility.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcr005iK2wY

Oberlin College President Carmen Twillie Ambar has staked out an aggressive posture in reaction to the massive $11 million compensatory and $33 million punitive damage verdicts awarded Gibson’s Bakery and its owners against Oberlin College and its Dean of Students, Meredith Raimondo.

Those verdicts likely will be reduced under Ohio’s tort reform law, but still likely will be in the 8-figure range, how high in the 8-figures will be one of the major post-trial fights.

As previously covered, immediately after the $33 million punitive damages verdict, Ambar issued a statement via blast email vowing to fight Gibson’s Bakery Verdict:

“Let me be absolutely clear: This is not the final outcome. This is, in fact, just one step along the way of what may turn out to be a lengthy and complex legal process.”

Ambar continued that aggressive approach in another blast email accompanying a Frequently Asked Questions document. Those FAQs repeated the prior false claim that Oberlin College was held liable for student speech.

The claim that Oberlin College was held liable for student speech was the main focus of an NPR Interview today with Ambar. Here is a partial transcription, listen to the whole thing below:

Q. What are your concerns about this judgment?

Ambar: Really, that this is a First Amendment case about whether whether an institution can be held liable for the speech of its students. And the actions of its students. And I think it’s important whether you’re a progressive or a conservative. Whether you are a small business owner or a large employer about whether you can be held responsible for the speech of people who either work for you or are part of your community. So that’s really what this case is about and I think it’s important for us to talk about it in that way even as we can get into some of the disputed facts around this issue.

Ambar went on to claim, as was claimed at trial, that Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo was at the protest only to help ensure the peace, as required by Oberlin College policy. A listener to the interview who was not familiar with the facts would not know that there was testimony by witnesses that Raimondo orchestrated the protest and the handed out of the defamatory flyers. The jury heard conflicting testimony and apparently did not believe Raimondo.

(if player doesn’t load, listen here)

It is clear that Oberlin College has settled on the claim that it is the defender of student free speech as a crisis management theme.

We have explored many times why the assertion that the college was held liable for the speech of students is false. Oberlin College was held liable for the actions of its administrators, including the Senior Vice President and Dean of Students, in spreading the defamatory statements. The college may dispute the facts, but the legal theory of liability cannot be disputed.

There is a separate legal issue as to whether the accusations against Gibson’s were defamatory or constitutionally protected opinion, but that has nothing to do with the erroneous vicarious liability narrative.

Here is what the judge wrote in denying the defendants’ summary judgment motion, and allowing the libel claim to proceed to trial (Order here):

Defendants argue that Plaintiffs have presented no evidence that either Oberlin College or Meredith Raimondo published the flyer. Under Ohio law, publication constitutes “[a]ny act by which the defamatory matter is communicated to a third party […].” Gilbert, at 743 (quoting Hecht v. Levin, 66 Ohio St.3d 458, 460 (Ohio 1993)).

“As a general rule, all persons who cause or participate in the publication of libelous or slanderous matter are responsible for such publication. Hence, one who requests, procures, or aids or abets, another to publish defamatory matter is liable as well as the publisher.” Cooke v. United Dairy Farmers, Inc., 2003-0hio-3118, K 25 (Ohio Ct. App. 10th Dist.) (citing Scott v. Huff (1970), 22 Ohio App.2d 141, 144, 259 N.E.2d 160 and 53 Corpus Juris Secundum 231, Libel and Slander, Section 148). “Thus, liability to respond in damages for the publication of defamation must be predicated on a positive act.” Id. “Nonfeasance, on the other hand, is not a predicate for liability. Mere knowledge of the acts of another is insufficient to support liability.” Id.

Here, it is undisputed that Meredith Raimondo presented at least one individual, Jason Hawk, with a copy of the protest flyer. The remaining evidence surrounding the distribution of the flyer, and the explanations for doing so, are in dispute. But Plaintiffs have presented testimony from individuals who say they observed Raimondo and other Oberlin College employees handing out flyers at the protest. Further, Plaintiffs offered evidence that Defendants permitted the protesters to make copies of the flyer on the Oberlin College Conservatory’s Office’s copy machine during the protests and provided protesters with refreshments and gloves for use during the protests. Weighing all of this evidence in Plaintiffs’ favor, the Court finds there are genuine issues of material fact regarding whether Defendants published the flyer.

It’s clear that the theory of liability was not vicarious based on student or even faculty speech but was based on the actions of Raimondo and other administrators.

There is nothing novel in a corporation being held liable for the actions of its employees, particularly senior employees and officers, acting within the scope of their employment.  It’s not even clear the college raised this as a defense—it may have, I haven’t reviewed all the hundreds of papers filed, but it wasn’t addressed by the judge when the college sought summary judgment dismissing the case.

The crisis management strategy of falsely claiming Oberlin College was held libel for student speech is another indication that the current college administration is ill-prepared to salvage Oberlin College from becoming the next Antioch College, as the Editorial Board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette warned, Oberlin run amok: After student crimes, college attacks the victims:

Oberlin is at a crossroads. It must take stock and correct course — no more political correctness for the sake of appearances or image, no more defense of student misbehavior. The college must admit that it erred and that the owners of the bakery acted as any business owners would under similar circumstances. More shenanigans like this could put Oberlin out of business at a time when so many liberal-arts schools are struggling to fill their classrooms.

That’s what happened to Antioch College, also once a distinguished Ohio liberal arts school. It was overcome with unthinking and fashionable leftist radicalism and it made itself a joke. Now it is a pale shadow of its former self. Is this the route Oberlin would like to go?

For Oberlin College, “sorry” seems to be the hardest word.

—————–

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Comments

Great work, Professor Jacobson

Hmm, BLM Affirmative Action in progress

    JusticeDelivered in reply to gonzotx. | June 22, 2019 at 9:42 pm

    It should be Bald Faced Black Liars Matter (BFBLM).

    Johnny Cuyana in reply to gonzotx. | June 26, 2019 at 1:33 pm

    Say or think ANYTHING you like, but, WHENEVER I see a BLACK or some other MINORITY as a Dr, Lawyer, Business Officer, or another type of Professional — even in STEM — the FIRST THING I think is AFFIRMATIVE ACTION DEGREE and HIRE. And, I am very suspicious.

    I am a scientist and for more than a decade I worked for a MAJOR USA corporation — all would recognize the name — and some of that time was spent with HR in recruiting new and experienced hires.

    This corporation — and ALL of their competitors, for sure — were ALL OVER minority hires — by hook or by crook, anyway they could — because they wanted to hire them because it was a BIG PART of their [MINORITY] COMMUNITY RELATIONS PROGRAMS.

    I got sick of it, mostly because I could not make an offer of hire to MORE THAN SEVERAL well-qualified WHITES … where ALL of them more qualified than the minorities to whom we were “forced” to offer employment.

    Despite all of the good technical work we did at this corporation, this travesty — essentially, shooting ourselves in the foot — was one of the main reasons why I left “corporate” America.

    Of course, when I see the foto of this Oberlin College President, minority hire is the first thing that comes to mind. Sorry … actually, NOT SORRY.

    This is the bed we made and now we must sleep in it.

    Who knows how this college president “earned” her position, but, I, for one, see minority-diversity hire written all over her face.

    What irony: in this land of self-government — where the individual rights, above all, are supposed to be respected — we leave it PRIMARILY to our HYPER-POLITICIZED govt [read: DEEP STATE] to make decisions/laws regarding such issues; where this govt, of all the possible non-perfect solutions, is the worst place to assign such responsibilities.

“…..Oberlin is now a place where ideology has replaced civility and where arrogance has smothered all expressions of humility and grace.”

—Melissa Landa

The Tragic Transformation of Oberlin College | Melissa Landa
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-tragic-transformation-of-oberlin-college/

    Silvertree in reply to Silvertree. | June 23, 2019 at 6:54 pm

    Just found this humble, graceful comment from November 2016. Here is true civility.

    *****
    As a black male who was born in Oberlin and has known the Gibsons all my life, I think I can say quite clearly that the store owned by said family is not a bastion of white supremacy and racist fervor. I actually consider Allyn to be a friend, and during my last few years in Oberlin before I moved away, he showed nothing but kindness to me. Whether it was offering me a lift if he saw me walking out in the cold, or simply just to say hello and ask how I was doing.

    When my father died years ago, it was the Gibsons who kindly brought several trays of food to our house during my families grieving. When you suddenly lose your father and your trying to process this, get everything in order with the funeral and the estate, etc., to have a local business owner just show up to your door with food to show support – that’s not racist, that’s kindness.

    It was also at Gibsons, that I was to have my first job in highschool. I had to get up at 5 am, or so, to go and help make donuts on Saturday mornings, so, that didn’t last too long. But, there was no animosity about my departure, and I don’t think white supremacists hire black kids to work in their shops. I have rented an apartment from them on more than one occasion, and they were always very fair. It is my belief that if an individual dislikes blacks, they will do all that they can from renting a place to them – I’ve experienced it before – but the Gibsons were, on the contrary, very welcoming.
    I would also like to make it known that I am aware of another instance in which a WHITE male was attempting to steal cash from the Gibsons store and Allyn physically detained him until the police arrived. If someone is taking from you, this is what I would do, myself. I don’t care if the person is purple, red, pink or rainbow colored. And as the above article mentions, the OPD says that this is within the law.

    As someone who was born in Oberlin and actually worked for the college for over 10 years, I eventually resigned to move away and travel. A small part of this was because I was beginning to question what was going on within the school. While there are many parts of Oberlin I love, I have to say that this suffocating and overwhelming need to label everyone as something and put everyone into their own box as different and against you, is something that I do not miss. And it makes me livid to see my friend being labeled very harshly in front of the world, by individuals who want to hide behind a veil of anonymity.

    I will continue shopping at Gibsons, whenever I return to Oberlin to visit. And I will continue to do my best to see humans as humans.

    Brandon Gilbert

    Students Call for Gibson’s Bakery Boycott – The Oberlin Review
    https://oberlinreview.org/11713/news/students-call-for-gibsons-bakery-boycott/

    The “Tragic Transformation” started years ago, and hit its apex with the election and reelction of obama.

    It’s an absolute miracle that Trump rode to the rescue. A complete miracle.

This is just sad. Either Oberlin College President Carmen Twillie Ambar is lying, or she really does not understand that the lawsuit against Oberlin was based on the actions of her employees.

How very embarrassing.

This fecklessness on the part of a college administration reminds me of the fire at Seton Hall, set by students, that resulted in three deaths.

My son was at the school at that time. He told me that the reason the response by the students to evacuate was so catastrophically slow was that they had experienced fire alarms being set off every night for the last three months.

He transferred.

    Tom Servo in reply to Valerie. | June 22, 2019 at 9:45 pm

    I am beginning to suspect that she is trying to help set up a 1st amendment defense so that Oberlin can move the appeal over to Federal Court.

    I don’t think it’s going to work – because the claim is based on fantasy, not fact.

      redc1c4 in reply to Tom Servo. | June 23, 2019 at 2:55 pm

      with the right Federal judge, that won’t be a problem…

        artichoke in reply to redc1c4. | June 23, 2019 at 3:45 pm

        Since it’s an appeal, wouldn’t it have to go to the Circuit Court governing that circuit? Since the number of that circuit is not 4 or 9, it’s not dominated by crazy leftists.

    JusticeDelivered in reply to Valerie. | June 22, 2019 at 9:45 pm

    I suspect that Oberlin College President Carmen Twillie Ambar was knee deep in this.

      artichoke in reply to JusticeDelivered. | June 23, 2019 at 3:42 pm

      At the time of the incidents she was still president of a tiny women’s college in Pennsylvania.

      I mean anything’s possible, but I’d guess she was just the right symbol to bring in after the white male predecessor. And Krislov was there for about 10 years, the normal term of a college president, so he wasn’t necessarily pushed out because of this either.

      Life just went on as normal and this wasn’t such a big deal. Ambar has stated publicly that it still isn’t.

    Arminius in reply to Valerie. | June 23, 2019 at 11:27 am

    That’s easy, Valerie. She’s lying. She has several advanced degrees, including a J.D. from Columbia, and is a member of the New York Bar.

    There is no way that if I, a layman, can read these rulings that Oberlin is being held accountable for the actions of its own administrators and that the college provided the protesters with a variety of types of logistical support then she can not. Even if she breezed through every single undergrad and graduate program due to affirmative action this isn’t difficult.

    I actually didn’t experience too much in the way of PC when I went to college in early to mid-80s. But I was slapped in the face with it when I decided to join the Navy in ’87. I wanted to be a pilot. I recall when my recruiter got the results of my Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) tests. LT Jimenez was impressed. “You did really well,” he said, “But we already have enough White pilots.”

    He told me that once I got to Aviation Officer Candidate school as an Air Intelligence Officer I would be able to take a pilot’s slot if any of them fell out of class.

    As the old saying goes, and we have all heard it before, my recruiter lied to me. It doesn’t work that way.

    Affirmative Action kills. After Tailhook ’91 word got around that it was career enhancing to promote women. It didn’t matter if they were good at their jobs or not. Just promote them beyond their level of competence.

    I was at an intelligence command in Japan that provided direct to support to 7th Fleet. I had a female third class petty officer who was assigned to my watch team. She was new to my team having been reassigned from another part of the command. I would say she worked for me but she never put in a day of work in her life. She would have her cup of coffee and jelly donut for the morning watch turn-over briefing. Half way through the briefing she’d put her donut and coffee down on a desk then pretend to faint.

    If you’re going to pretend to faint, at least do it right. When people faint they fall forward. She’d do the worst imitation of fainting I’ve ever seen she’d basically sit down on the floor and flop onto her back. Then she’d “come to” and ask to go to the medical clinic. There was no legal way I could say “no” even though I knew what she was up to. Every night she’d head up to the party districts in Tokyo and shut down her favorite night spots.

    This doesn’t mean I was an idle bystander. I was documenting everything. The people at medical got tired of seeing her every morning when she had nothing wrong with her. They called me and asked, “Is she a malingerer?” and I told them she most definitely was. When it was time for her performance evaluation I showed no mercy. While she skated everybody else had to take up the slack and that wasn’t fair. I don’t want anyone to get the impression I had something against the women in the command. I had another female petty officer on the team who was stellar. She resented this slacker just as much as anybody. So I gave her the lowest grades I could honestly justify.

    Then all the enlisted evals would go up the chain to my department head who would change all the grades to make it look like she was a really good Sailor. Remember, the way to get ahead if you were a man is the post-Tailhook Navy was to promote women. Finally it became so glaringly obvious that she was a problem child that we needed to get rid of that the executive officer got involved.

    There’s a point to this, I swear.

    She called the department head, the Command Master Chief, and myself in for a meeting. We agreed we needed to administratively separate her. But the CMC is looking through her personnel file and says, “We can’t. The grades on her performance evals are too good.”

    I was able to prove I wasn’t the one who gave her those evals. Me, the XO, and the CMC just turn and stare at the department head, who is squirming uncomfortably in his chair. Somehow, from the look on the XO’s face when we left her office the “whole promoting” women conventional wisdom that he was following did not result in a career-enhancing fitness report from her, his direct supervisor.

    I had a flashback to all that following the Fort Hood shooting. It turns out, for instance, that Nidal Hassan’s direct supervisor also gave him poor scores on whatever the Army equivalent of a Navy FITREP is. And then it would go up through the chain of command and the light colonel at the next level would change everything to give Hassan an outstanding evaluation.

    Hassan’s colleagues noticed disturbing, threatening signs in Hassan’s behavior. For instance, when it was his turn to conduct training it often involved something along the lines of “The Islamic View of Muslims Serving in the United States Armed Forces.” He said the Army should release Muslim soldiers as “conscientious objectors” rather then to force them to fight in Muslim majority countries to prevent “adverse events.” And, pray, what were the adverse events Hassan could foresee? Among those adverse events were killing fellow soldiers. Remember Hasan Akbar, the former SGT who for some inexplicable reason got into the 101st Airborne and rolled four grenades into a tent in Kuwait days before the invasion of Iraq kicked off in March 2003 then opened fire, killing two and wounding fourteen? Yeah, like that. He was giving his fellow psychiatrists a power point presentation on what he had planned and they got the message.

    Some went to their supervisors and voiced their concerns which were dismissed out of hand. I can imagine some of these supervisors paraphrasing my recruiter but this time as a threat. “We have plenty of white psychiatrists.” Meaning of course that as an Arab Muslim “brown other” Hassan was a diversity hire gold mine. There were too many white guys senior to him who planned on building their careers promoting him.

    After Hassan’s killing spree was stopped with a bullet to the spine then Army Chief of Staff Gen. Casey said that “as great a tragedy this has been” it would be an “even greater” tragedy if the “cause of diversity” became a casualty as well.

    No, it wouldn’t you piece of garbage. Thirteen soldiers were killed and another thirty two wounded because when you give these inside-the-beltway general and flag officers a hard shove and threaten their four star retirements they turn into dancing bears. Thirteen dead and thirty two wounded is a price they’re willing to pay precisely because they’re not paying it.

    Casey’s comment about diversity seems apropos because like Ambar here is likewise demonstrating he didn’t learn a damned thing. And the consequences were more dire.

    My mom used to enthusiastically collect Hummel figurines. She still has her collection on display but at 85 she’s not interested in acquiring any more. But the race/gender/LGBTQ++++ obsessed identity politicking tribal left reminds me of a really avid Hummel collector. You’ve got to get one of each! Which historic first are they going to collect next? Then nominee can’t be Sanders or Biden. Old white men? We’ve collected plenty of those. “Mayor Pete” as the historic first gay President? According to the NYT he’s not gay enough. He’s married and postures as if he’s a Christian. You just can’t imagine him at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade sashaying down the street in drag as one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Boring! As somebody wrote in the NYT, and I’m not making this up because I couldn’t have conceived of this thought in a million years, when you look at “Mayor Pete” and his partner you see heterosexuality just without any woman.

    How does that even work? Is that one of those sophisticated New York thoughts that make me never want to go to New York lest I meet one of the sophisticates who think those thoughts?

    Speaking of New York, is deBlasio an option? Well, we never had a seven foot white guy who is married to black woman before. But if Biden has to apologize for his past associations the deBlasio is first going to have to apologize for murdering that Ground Hog.

    How about a historic first woman for President. Williamson seems to have all the right credentials for a Democratic presidential nominee. Like Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams she lost her last election too, so she’s perfect for failing up. As a spiritualist, like Hillary Clinton she can talk to Eleanor Roosevelt or Mamie Eisenhower if she needs advice. Perhaps she can appoint them to her cabinet. But, too white? We can spice things up with a dash of 1/1024 Indian. Oh, even better a multi racial woman! No, she’s a former prosecutor. If Biden and deBlasio have a lot to apologize for, Harris will be apologizing into her third term. Biden only worked with segregationists, Harris worked with, barf, cops.

    What to do, what to do. I know; let’s draft Lori Lightfoot for the Democratic nomination. She’s already the historic first black lesbian woman to be elected mayor of Chicago. Now she can be the historic first black lesbian woman President anywhere in the world!

    Nothing else will do for our progressive woke Hummel collection.

    Joe-dallas in reply to Valerie. | June 23, 2019 at 3:08 pm

    A second point – a normal business would have fired Meredith Raimondo almost immediately. Same with the University of Missouri professor. The fact that neither was terminated demonstrates how detached from reality those schools have become.

    artichoke in reply to Valerie. | June 23, 2019 at 3:28 pm

    She has a JD from Columbia. There’s some method in what she’s doing, and I guess she crafted her words carefully to be just short of lying. I only listened once, so there might be an easter egg in there that I missed.

    She said it’s important for the public to think of the incident her way. Indeed for her it is important, even though that way of thinking would be wrong.

      JusticeDelivered in reply to artichoke. | June 23, 2019 at 5:35 pm

      Degrees are not created equal. It is a shame that some people who really earned their degrees have to prove that in the workplace, all because the market has been flooded with sham degrees.

Can she really believe what she is saying, or is this just a way to spin it to the alumni and board? I can’t imagine that any thinking person is going to want to send their child to such a cesspool, run by obviously incompetent and dangerous idealogues.

Can Oberlin’s egregious and repeated post-trial misrepresentations be used as evidence for the need to make the punitive damages as high as allowed by law?

    Valerie in reply to moonmoth. | June 22, 2019 at 9:02 pm

    It would be extraordinary for an appellate court to consider evidence that was not presented at trial. That said, after-developed evidence is in rare cases considered.

    If I were counsel for the plaintiffs, I might file a motion to consider these email blasts and interviews as evidence that the school still has not learned its lesson. Chances are, it would be denied, but in order to deny it, the court would have to force somebody to read the brief.

      Arminius in reply to Valerie. | June 25, 2019 at 4:12 am

      Valerie, is it an ordinary circumstance for the president and other top-level officials of an entity that has just lost a defamation suit to act this way? During the punitive damages phase both Raimondo and Ambar took the stand and said they understood the message the jury sent when they awarded the Gibsons $11M in actual compensatory damages, and that they respected the decision. And then go outside the court room and tell the world they didn’t get the message at all and have nothing but contempt for the verdict.

      It’s clear that what they said on the stand was false. They were just mouthing the words they needed to support their lawyers’ strategy to try to convince the jury that punitive damages should not be any higher than necessary to teach a defendant who has wronged someone a lesson. And they claimed to have learned their lesson, so really there should be no or very limited damages.

      Everything they’ve said publicly outside the court room demonstrates they haven’t learned their lesson at all and they didn’t believe a word they said under oath to the contrary. They were just trying to pull the wool over the jurors’ eyes to pay as little as possible to the Gibsons.

      I would think the fact that Carmen Twillie Ambar is impeaching her own testimony should be relevant.

Joseph Goebbels would be proud. Reframing the controversy on THEIR terms is classic. This is will aided by a press too lazy to read the court decisions and too committed to stray from the Party line. It works with BLM and for Leftists in general.

When “individual” groups reform in the Fall, this will be choreographed as student “direct action” against Gibsons without Admin fingerprints. Since some of the students come from outside Ohio….this could be a interesting RICO case.

whatapieceofworkisaman | June 22, 2019 at 9:04 pm

This story is the gift that just keeps on giving. If Oberlin continues down this path of denial, at some point the institution will become Gibson College.

    The Friendly Grizzly in reply to whatapieceofworkisaman. | June 23, 2019 at 6:26 am

    That,or it is sold for the symbolic $1.00, and turned into another Hillsdale.

      Another Voice in reply to The Friendly Grizzly. | June 23, 2019 at 12:41 pm

      How perfect would that be!
      The irony of it would be the ultimate retribution to assessed monetary damages to Oberlin College but also to the suffering not just by the Gibson family and business, but the entire community at large. One where having a local college reflects their ethos.

Dilbert Deplorable | June 22, 2019 at 9:10 pm

Oberlin College President Carmen Twillie Ambar is a disgusting liar.

Her college has been found GUILTY in a court of law and by her PEERS.

Instead of showing a modicum of contrition and suggesting she and her staff will do better in the future she continues to shiiiiit on the community around her.

Shame on you Ms. Ambar. Tou are s filthy disgrace to all honest hardworking Americans.

JusticeDelivered | June 22, 2019 at 9:15 pm

Oberlin College President Carmen Twillie Ambar should be canned, along with any other administrator who played a role in this sorry mess. The 1st Amendment does not protect statement of falsehoods as facts. It does protect clearly stated opinions. I can understand students not knowing this, but I cannot understand anyone in management positions not understanding this.

It was clearly proven in the trial that school staff and resources were used against Gibsons in a multitude of ways. Damages were not assessed for students libel-defamation yet, I hope that they are also held accountable. I would like to see each of the student activists leaving Oberlin with a few hundred thousand dollars worth of judgements, and those monies being collected week by week for a decade or two.

    healthguyfsu in reply to JusticeDelivered. | June 23, 2019 at 8:09 am

    She wont’ be canned because she wasn’t President when the acts occurred.

    She will, however, have her reputation in academia dragged down by remaining with this faulty narrative and by presiding over this poorly managed defense. In essence, she will be damaged goods and that is a justified personal outcome in and of itself.

      Subotai Bahadur in reply to healthguyfsu. | June 23, 2019 at 3:21 pm

      First, I MISTAKENLY hit the downvote while trying to hit “reply”. Sorry.

      Second, this will not harm her reputation in her career field or on the Left at all, but rather enhance it. If she should decide to leave Oberlin, the bidding war for her as a proven defender of the Narrative will be intense.

      Subotai Bahadur

      Ambar’s academic reputation is enhanced and bolstered by refusing to accept the jury’s decision, not diminished. NPR allowing Ambar’s dishonest characterization of the trial, san rebuttal of those falsehoods, proves the point.

Translation: It wasn’t our fault! The kids did it! Sure we had professors out there and we let them use our copy machine and we may have had a few encouraging… well, a lot of encouraging words for them and called the bakery a few names just because they didn’t give out their products for free. But it’s Trump’s fault!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftt4f2H3GDs

I would still be interested in legal opinions concerning the personal liability of the trustees in this. Is the title “trustee” meaningless? For one thing, they are entrusted as custodians to safeguard the endowment funds. If the legal costs keep piling up, they may not be able to fulfill the obligations of the terms of at least the restricted funds. Can they legally stand by and do/say nothing?

Heck, the insurance company declared that the policy doesn’t cover administrative malfeasance/criminality. Isn’t that a major legal problem for the board? Is there an “oops!” loophole for the trustees?

    Tom Servo in reply to Pasadena Phil. | June 22, 2019 at 9:47 pm

    I hate to say this, but modern corporations, organizations, and government at ALL level is set up, intentionally, so that NOBODY has personal responsibility for anything. Not at any level. Things go bad, say Oberlin goes out of business and loses everything, the trustees say “well that’s a shame” and walk away without a scratch.

      There’s an excellent movie called “Spotlight” starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Liev Schreiber, and others about how the Boston Globe exposed the pedophile priests. It takes a bit of explaining to make my point and it is a fantastic movie for people who think you can’t beat the system.

      The Archdiocese of Boston was very effective in suppressing the problem. I can tell you from living it that everyone knew something was wrong. Most of the victims averages 12 years old, the statute of limitations was 3 years and the maximum penalty was $20,000. Point #1, the law was stacked against any hope of prosecution even if you were willing to suffer being stigmatized and slandered and present proof. So cases were settled out of court.

      Many who got snared into the Boston Globe investigation and asked to produce evidence already had but many turned out to be complicit in letting it fail including the lead Globe reporter on the case. Point #2, There is a shared guilt that results from the “we can’t win” attitude cultivated by the Church, charities, politicians etc… so that even those who know and are appalled, are complicit by giving up.

      I’m not going to spoil the movie and everyone knows how it ends. But it is a masterful telling of how you beat the system. And it isn’t the lawyers who do it. In the Boston case, he had defended the Church in som 70+ settlements and “knew where the bodies were buried”. But he had legal constraints preventing him from acting on it. (See the movie). Evidence was everywhere but no one dared step forward and besides, with the statute of limitations having expires on almost all cases, that was going nowhere.

      In the end, it was the Boston Globe have the guts to publish their findings that led to public outcry and many billion dollar settlements many, many dioceses in the US alone. On about 13 known cases to start, about 250 priests were charged in MA alone. Thousands across the US.

      Final point, it’s not the law that gets things done. I getting the information out there. Nothing disinfects like sunlight and I can find no better case proving that than the Catholic priest pedophilia expose by the Boston Globe in 2001-2002. The law was against them yet the reporting shook the world and reverberates to this day.

      Silvertree in reply to Tom Servo. | June 25, 2019 at 2:30 pm

      This information from a comment below Michelle Malkin’s article in the Daily Signal:

      “Not mentioned much about the Gibson’s/OC story is that the Chair of the Board of Trustees, a rather large group, is Chris Canavan. Mr. Canavan, a 1990’s graduate of Oberlin, has been employed since 2010 at the Soros Fund Management as Director of Global Policy Development. Prior to that he worked for 13 years at Goldman Sachs. Board members of any group have a responsibility to “do no harm” to the institution or business which they represent. This board, led by Mr. Canavan has failed in this responsibility. Oberlin College Board of Trustees- It’s time to call off the dogs!”

      I’m an Oberlin Graduate. They Had It Coming.
      https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/06/19/im-an-oberlin-graduate-they-had-it-coming/I

whatapieceofworkisaman | June 22, 2019 at 10:13 pm

Maybe Oberlin is just a lost cause. One hopes for insight or empathy or self-awareness but it just isn’t to be.

Can Oberlin College President Carmen Twillie Ambar be held responsible in court for this “PR” tactic in denying the ruling such as contempt of court?

It is getting harder and harder to believe that Krislov, Varner, and Ambar all have law degrees. The only possible issue here of a first amendment case would be if the po-po had disrupted the protests in front of Gibsons. That didn’t happen, so Oberlin, give it a rest.

I did happen across this article today which had a few facts that I hadn’t seen before, including that Oberlin had paid Krislov’s final year in his contract at $500K, which was brought out in the trial to indicate that Oberlin was sufficiently flush to pay people for doing nothing.

https://www.toledoblade.com/local/courts/2019/06/12/oberlin-college-gibsons-bakery-make-arguments-punitive-damages/stories/20190612183

Another point of contention here is the legal fees for the students. IIRC, they were initially covered by a trustee for Aladin to meet with a criminal attorney in Columbus, and he was taken there in a college car. This has sort of disappeared from the storyline, but then today I read that the legal fees for all three were paid by an anonymous alumnus. I am curious about these claims since it seems to point closer to where the decision making is happening. At best it is highly irregular, and the highly suspicious part of me is wondering if Aladin was promised legal representation as long as he followed the party line. This may have fallen apart when they chose to take the plea agreement vs going to trial. The plea agreement completely took racism and racial profiling out of the picture, and that was the time for Oberlin to come clean and apologize. I also read that Aladin tried to deviate from the agreed upon script and that the judge ordered him to read the statement as written. It just seems like someone or some group desperately wanted the accusation of racism to hold up.

Now it seems like they are pushing the bogus 1st amendment issue to anyone clueless enough to listen. Who wants to bet that the “questions” for the conference call have already been written and will be slanted towards a pro-1st amendment argument.

Anyone have a 2017 Hi-O-HI? I think it is about time that we start to put names to faces at the protest.

    healthguyfsu in reply to MajorWood. | June 23, 2019 at 8:13 am

    Although I hadn’t read it, there was never a doubt in my mind that the original criminals in this case were unremorseful and highly interested in perpetuating this hoax. The steps Oberlin has taken to make them into little saints is nothing short of disgusting character assassination by proxy.

    walls in reply to MajorWood. | June 23, 2019 at 12:18 pm

    I didn’t know these two facts you provide:
    1. Aladin and the other perps legal fees were paid by alumni.
    2. Aladin was driven the 2+ hours to Columbus in a college car.

    I find this revolting. First off, where was mommy and daddy in all this? I would expect OC to provide guidance [normal practice for a college re: a student in trouble] – but that guidance stops after prospective criminal defense attorney names are given to Aladin. The college had to become actively involved in getting an alumnus to pony up the legal fees. And shouldn’t Aladin be responsible to procure his own transportation to Columbus? When Aladin goes home for Christmas break, does OC also drive him there – or pay his airfare?

    What kind of message does this send to others? If you are accused of a crime – *especially* if you are black and accused of a crime …. don’t worry, we’ll take care of everything. We’re Oberlin College …. we’re woke …. we’re social justice warriors …. we’re on your side. Totally disgusting! I hope OC’s alumni contributions dry up like a withered prune.

    Silvertree in reply to MajorWood. | June 23, 2019 at 6:08 pm

    The last Oberlin College yearbook was the 2006 edition, according to the OC library archives.

Letting them get shut down would be a beautiful thing. It would totally wreck the city’s economy there, though. Still, it would be a neat gain to society at this point.

This is a strange tactic by Ambar (assuming that she isn’t so silly that she actually believes this “First Amendment” tripe). Her argument seems so legally unsophisticated that it couldn’t possibly deceive anyone who actually matters—and at this point, the only people who matter are judges. The point where “trial by press” or by mob could be a factor is long past. Not even Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan, making their usual helpful contributions, can affect this case. The only possibility I can see is that she’s trying to bamboozle Oberlin’s directors into thinking that maybe she’s on top of things, which might save her skin even if it doesn’t help Oberlin in the least.

Ambar went on to claim, as was claimed at trial, that Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo was at the protest only to help ensure the peace, as required by Oberlin College policy.

In most colleges and universities, there is a safety department / campus police department responsible to help ensure the peace.

    Pillage Idiot in reply to walls. | June 23, 2019 at 1:51 am

    Good point walls! Ambar’s argument is self-refuting.

    The students’ flyers and rhetoric indicated they were protesting an establishment of violent racists. If so, then how would Raimondo be capable of protecting the students?

    I certainly would not send my teen-aged daughters to confront Stormfront without a serious law enforcement presence.

      Diversity is insidious and breeds adversity. The underground factions of like kind are the least of their concerns. Oberlin et al need to stop indulging color judgments and practices (e.g. racism).

    Arminius in reply to walls. | June 23, 2019 at 4:58 pm

    Is Ms. Ambar brain dead?

    Givson’s bakery isn’t on campus. Raimondo and the college administration have no authority there. Just as it was city of Oberlin PD that responded to the original shoplifting, and not campus police, it is the city of Oberlin PD that’s responsible for keeping the peace.

    It sounds to me that what Ms. Ambar said is tantamount to admitting that the protests were in fact official campus-sponsored events. Is she worried that Oberlin may be liable for more than what we know so far?

Democrats lie. It’s their nature.

quaker lady | June 23, 2019 at 5:35 am

Listening to her comments, I think Ambar is raising a new issue. She says the question is whether or not the institution can be held responsible for not just students but people “who work for you or are a part of your community” (I think that is an accurate quote). I’m not sure how the college can disavow Raimondo’s actions, since the claim is that her job required her to be there, but the argument seems to be going in that direction. Perhaps, that what she did was beyond her authority from the college? Ambar certainly intends to disavow the actions of all other employees. I think we are hearing more of the prospective argument on appeal and that it that goes beyond the claim that the college can’t be held responsible for the students.

    Tom Servo in reply to quaker lady. | June 23, 2019 at 9:43 am

    Ambar and Oberlin have a huge problem with trying to make a “new issue” out of this, which demonstrates how catastrophic it was of them to essentially pay no attention to the trial while it was ongoing, instead treating it as an annoyance that would go away on its own. A common mistake of foolishly overconfident people.

    Generally, an appellant can NOT raise any issues or present any evidence which was not raised or presented at the original trial. That was the chance for you to make your case, and you blew it.

    I didn’t see any claims at all from Oberlin that they weren’t responsible for what Raimondo did, during the trial. They can’t now raise that as an issue in the appeal.

    artichoke in reply to quaker lady. | June 23, 2019 at 4:59 pm

    If Raimondo had violated the terms of her employment so egregiously that it landed Oberlin with a big judgment against it, she would no longer be employed there.

    The fact that she is says strongly that she was not acting “ultra vires” but within the scope of her employment.

Anyone else notice how much Carmen Twillie Anbar resembles Draymond Green?

In the middle of this video made a by a lawyer with a lefty bent, while he’s going over the case files in detail. he comes across a section about a parking lot owned by the Gibsons. It seems the college routinely uses it for their own purposes, like parking their construction vehicles there. Do the Gibsons own property around town the college would like to pick up if the family was forced out of business? Was there an ulterior motive in helping the students label the family as racist? Did the jury hear about the parking lot?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=D4wANw5nICE&feature=youtu.be

    The Friendly Grizzly in reply to elliesmom. | June 23, 2019 at 6:35 am

    You brought to mind two common expressions: “Follow the money”, and, “Location, location, location!”.

    Silvertree in reply to elliesmom. | June 23, 2019 at 11:31 am

    The parking lot behind Gibson’s is very large, used by multiple businesses that back on to it. The lot adjoins the very small parking lot of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. The College apparently has some interest in that larger lot. Here’s more about that side of things:

    “Gibson’s Bakery has filed a lawsuit against Oberlin College, prompting the college to once again sever business ties with the downtown bakery.

    The lawsuit lays out a narrative in which Oberlin College — trying to recover its image of being supportive of the African-American community after firing a professor who is black, and with business interests in wanting to buy the Gibson property and adjacent parking lot — latched on to a shoplifting incident to promote Gibson’s as a racist establishment to bolster its own image and interests.”

    Gibson’s sues Oberlin College – Chronicle-Telegram
    http://www.chroniclet.com/cops-and-courts/2017/11/10/Gibson-39-s-sues-Oberlin-College.html

    *****

    “The college may have had a more sinister motive for fueling the outrage, withholding their business and condoning the protests. Oberlin college may be motivated by their desire to control a parking lot next to the bakery. David Gibson holds controlling interest in the company which owns the lot. If the family bakery failed, this asset may have come up for grabs to the delight of Oberlin College.”

    Bakery Unleashes Lawsuit On Students As Liberals Scream Racism, Crucial Detail Revealed – Conservative Daily Post
    https://conservativedailypost.com/bakery-unleashes-lawsuit-on-students-as-liberals-scream-racism-crucial-detail-revealed/

    MajorWood in reply to elliesmom. | June 23, 2019 at 12:39 pm

    The parking lot was an item in the original complaint. I have very little doubt that a “clever” person looked at what was going on and said, “you know, we just might be able to get A by supporting B.” The college is sort of like a city bureaucracy, except without the power of eminent domain, so they need to be more creative in their approach, and in keeping with the normal leftist SOP, never let a crisis go to waste. The person who made the statement along the lines of “we have achieved our objective of killing their brand” to me was the most truthful and damning of a possible Oberlin complicity here. As this drags on, for me at least, stupid is getting less important and actual malice is starting to become to real and only motivator. I do wonder if the recent world-class stupid statements being made by the administration are a smoke-screen distraction away from what really motivated them in the first place. I bet with a detailed timeline that we could establish when and where this suddenly became a pathway to gain a parking lot via subterfuge.

    MajorWood in reply to elliesmom. | June 23, 2019 at 1:32 pm

    https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/11/gibsons-bakery-sues-oberlin-college-over-racial-profiling-accusations-oberlin-cuts-business-ties/#more

    Items 60-62 in the “read more” section.

    It may end up that all of this fiasco was just a backdoor attempt to exploit a crisis and obtain a parking lot. If so, we are now talking Manhattan costs/sq ft, AND, Oberlin still doesn’t have the property! Every protest has an associated shake-down, always. The longer this goes on, the greater the possibility that we might see some actual criminal charges. As I say all the time, it seems, it is never the crime; it is always the cover-up.

    Sure, this is mostly conjecture on my part, but it does seem to make more sense than anything Oberlin has offered up in the last 2-1/2 yrs. And it could be the basis of a “David Simon” class screenplay.

    Silvertree in reply to elliesmom. | June 23, 2019 at 3:20 pm

    More about the rental properties:

    “Another $985,000 will be lost from rental properties owned by David Gibson, testimony said. Prior to the protests, there was a waiting list for apartments in David Gibson’s buildings, but since the protests students will no longer rent from him, Monaco said.

    Monaco also estimated Gibson’s will lose another $2 million in revenue from not being able to follow through with a business plan that would have seen two more apartment buildings built in the coming years.”

    CPA says protests could lead to loss of $5.8 million for Gibson’s Bakery – Chronicle-Telegram

    http://www.chroniclet.com/cops-and-courts/2019/05/21/CPA-says-Gibson-39-s-Bakery-will-lose-5-8M-in-damage.html

    artichoke in reply to elliesmom. | June 23, 2019 at 5:16 pm

    Excellent video, although as of 15 minutes in he hasn’t mentioned the 2 bottles Aladin was hiding under his coat, that were also shoplifting as well as the one he visibly ran out of the store with.

    artichoke in reply to elliesmom. | June 23, 2019 at 6:08 pm

    At 35:30 we learn that Oberlin (1) canceled classes and (2) provided class credit for attending the demonstrations.

    So it seems to me that students were COMPELLED by Gibson’s to attend the demonstrations, since their alternate way of earning equivalent course credit was taken away by class cancellation.

    Oh, those lies by President Ambar are so bad that somebody should be hauled in for contempt of court or worse.

    Starting around then, the listening is VERY entertaining.

      artichoke in reply to artichoke. | June 23, 2019 at 6:31 pm

      The land thing is at 45:00.

      artichoke in reply to artichoke. | June 23, 2019 at 6:53 pm

      At 1:12 he says that “some faculty member” of Oberlin releases the letter after the compensatory verdict and says that’s a bonehead move since the jury is still sitting.

      It wasn’t “some faculty member”. It was their IN-HOUSE COUNSEL.

I would not send my child to any college that behaved the way Oberlin did. Between trying to sweep shoplifting under the rug to remove a student’s consequence for his actions to helping organize the destruction of a local business for not dancing to the demands of the college, this is not the pace I would like my child educated.
>
I would, however, NEVER allow my child to attend a college that so blatantly lied about a court action they lost. Either the college is pushing propaganda or are in full denial of reality. Either way, this is a harbinger of a terrible education based upon lies, political agenda, and outright propaganda. It is not a promise of an open education that will test and push my child to be a better thinking individual.
>
To me the cover up, self righteous justification of their bad behavior, and out right lying about what happened is far worse than the actual crime. The act for which they were caught, tried and found guilty, is a momentary error in judgement while the cover up shows an error in their heart, soul, and ethics.

Should I rejoice at this whirlwind new academic love affair with the First Amendment?

Have conservatives finally found a true champion on campus?

How much is it to buy that bridge across the East River and that land in Florida?

Is $73,694 per year worth it for an Oberlin education?

https://www.oberlin.edu/admissions-and-aid/tuition-and-fees

    artichoke in reply to Mudcat. | June 23, 2019 at 5:23 pm

    That includes room and board, and included with the meal plan, you get to throw your food on the floor and otherwise misbehave without consequences.

    Other schools even in that price range don’t let you do that!

When Ambar talked about Raimondo just being there to observe the protests and make sure there was no damage it made me wonder what it would have been like if Raimondo had to proctor tests earlier in her career. Did she hand out answers and study notes?

Oh, so the crazed mob of student activists (and faculty/school admins) were merely expressing their right to “free speech” when they tried to destroy a business that dared to stand up to student shoplifters.
Yeah, go with that defense. That’ll work.

Carmen Twillie Ambar is a black woman. Therefore, she is always the victim. QED.

Three of the four women who produced this fiasco are POC.

After reading Melissa Landa’s article and several others pieces about Oberlin, the behavior of Ambar and Raimondo and others becomes more clear. The people in the Oberlin culture are utterly certain in the moral rightness of their cause; fighting for the rights of oppressed people of color against the two great evils of our time, “Whiteness” and “Jews”.

Ohhhh…the Oberlin pres is black. That explains a lot…AND why she won’t admit the staff was involved as well. It’s all so clear now.

    MarkSmith in reply to D3F1ANT. | June 23, 2019 at 10:48 am

    Her being Black explains zero. Her taking a position with an extreme liberal college with a bunch of spoil brats attending it, does. Her comments just support the elitist liberal she is. Drop the black stuff, it is a stupid comment that has no value here. I suspect D3F1ant is a liberal troll.

      Anchovy in reply to MarkSmith. | June 23, 2019 at 12:19 pm

      Nobody elected you site moderator. You don’t tell people what they can say or not say, that is the sphere of places like Oberlin.

        MarkSmith in reply to Anchovy. | June 23, 2019 at 2:38 pm

        “Nobody elected you site moderator. You don’t tell people what they can say or not say, that is the sphere of places like Oberlin.” – Anchovy

        You are correct I am not the site moderator. I can tell you I have been a patron on this site for several years now and if I see someone posting crap, I am going to call it out. It takes away from the the good work that LI has done over the many years I have been following it. I am pretty sure others here will come out and support me on this. If you want to attack Carmen Twillie Ambar then do it on merit and fact, not some BS comment like she is black. Shows your ignorance. Even a dumb sarcastic comment, take it some place else. That is my recommendation.

          Anchovy in reply to MarkSmith. | June 23, 2019 at 3:07 pm

          I did not comment on Ms. Amber. I did not even mention her or any person. I addressed you and your attempt to shut down comments you don’t like. I too have been here a long time so your longevity is not impressive. Get over yourself and stop trying to shut down comments you don’t like. You are Oberlin.

          MarkSmith in reply to MarkSmith. | June 23, 2019 at 7:34 pm

          LOL:

          I addressed you and your attempt to shut down comments you don’t like.

          It’s a blog. That is my opinion, so too bad. Obviously I can’t shut it down or stop it. I am going to call it as I see it and so should you.

          Stupid statements like Carmen Twillie Ambar is a black woman. Therefore, she is always the victim. QED. by bob sykes and D3f1ant comment just feed in to the claim that Oberlin college tried to used against Gibson. It is a racist comment and my longevity here believes that Prof. Jacobson would not support such a statement. I hope he comments about that.

          I too have been here a long time so your longevity is not impressive.

          So, could careless if you think that and does not address the issue of racist comments not being challenged here.

          Get over yourself and stop trying to shut down comments you don’t like.

          If you have been coming here a long time, you sure don’t know how things work around here.

          You are Oberlin.

          ? Not sure what that means? Maybe you are trying to claim I support Oberlin or associated with it? If so, you better look at some of my previous posts. I have been rootin for the Gibson’s from day one because Oberlin were using identity politics to intimidate the Gibson’s.

          So Anchovy, I put it to you. Do you believe that race bait comments should be ignored or called out? Do you agree with
          bob sykes and D3f1ant? Maybe you are associated with Oberlin and want this site trashed with racist comments. I don’t.

          As for shutting down comments, I doubt I even came close to that. I am guessing the race bait trolls could careless what I have to say.

          Below me, Tiki is spot on. That message is not going to be heard if it is clouded with stupid racist comments that are not based on fact or reasonable opinion.

          Anchovy in reply to MarkSmith. | June 23, 2019 at 8:22 pm

          Do not confuse my post with the original post by D3F1ANT. I said nothing about race. Now go back and point out anything I said about anyone’s race. You have confused the two posts and you owe me an apology for implying I am a racist.

          MarkSmith in reply to MarkSmith. | June 24, 2019 at 12:08 am

          Do not confuse my post with the original post by D3F1ANT.

          I am not, better reread.

          I said nothing about race.
          Yea, so.

          Now go back and point out anything I said about anyone’s race.

          June 17th –

          Go for it Oberlin! Social justice demands it. Stop the white power racists who are trying to infringe on your good name.

          You have confused the two posts and you owe me an apology for implying I am a racist.

          Really? A racist? Where? An apology?! That’s great. How about a little kettle/pot – “Get over yourself and stop trying to shut down comments you don’t like.”

          Now if you are serious, answer the previous questions – So Anchovy, I put it to you. Do you believe that race bait comments should be ignored or called out? Do you agree with
          bob sykes and D3f1ant?

        Tiki in reply to Anchovy. | June 23, 2019 at 4:46 pm

        It’s you who are attempting to shut down comments you don’t like.

        Ambar, like most of her colleagues at Oberlin, are cultural revolutionary Maoists. The students are fledgling Red Guard. And NPR is the People’s Daily news outlet.

        That’s all that matters.

      Tiki in reply to MarkSmith. | June 23, 2019 at 4:37 pm

      Of course you’re right.

      JusticeDelivered in reply to MarkSmith. | June 23, 2019 at 8:31 pm

      Rabid entitlement is common within the black community. Disrespect of law and due process is common. A staggering high crime rate is reality.

      I really wish that this was not the case, I wish that blacks, and other people with similar problems would look at their situation, and take action to fix it.

      At the same time, I am sick of those who refuse to work to change their situation and even worse try blame others for their faults.

        MarkSmith in reply to JusticeDelivered. | June 24, 2019 at 12:25 am

        Gotta challenge you on this.

        Rabid entitlement is common within the black community. Disrespect of law and due process is common. A staggering high crime rate is reality.

        Do you have first hand experience of this? I do. I do agree that entitlement is common, but it is not just the black community. Many lower income areas seem to have the same problem. When I lived in Chicago, there was an 8 block section that was averaging a murder a day in the 90’s. These same people I knew in the low income areas had a disrespect for the law. They were not all black, so I take issue with the generalization. I recommend that you look at the political makeup of these so call high crime areas and you are more likely to find they are democrat controlled areas. Lets change the wording a little bit and it makes more sense:

        Rabid entitlement is common within the democrat controlled community. Disrespect of law and due process is common. A staggering high crime rate is reality.

        I know of black communities in DC, Chicago, Detroit and Atlanta areas that are safe and my take is responsible, not entitled driven.

        Now if you are looking for a black case of entitlement, then talk about it, like the Pigford case.

        https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2013/06/pigford_the_unexamined_obama_administration_scandal.html

        Be specific and don’t generalize. “Black Community” is to general.

Comanche Voter | June 23, 2019 at 11:13 am

Ms. Ambar has a law degree. She is a wannabe litigator. The job description for successful litigators is that they are able to make people (on a jury–or in this case the uninformed public) believe that bovine excrement tastes like vanilla ice cream.

She will not be a successful litigator.

    To be fair, what can she do? Her institution’s rabid diversity has been observed, judged, and condemned. And the ball of yarns they spun to cover up a progressive process of corruption is unwinding with explosive force, threatening to damage the spinners and inflict liberal collateral damage to those who indulged the lies and deceit. This is similar to the situation, I believe it was the Atlanta school district, New York, too, that thought they could game the law and student lives in order to reap a progressive profit at the expense of children’s future viability and society’s stability.

      rochf in reply to n.n. | June 23, 2019 at 5:52 pm

      I’ll tell you what she can do–she can shut up if she can’t make a statement on behalf of the college without lying about this case.
      She can start showing that the college really has heard the jury and the community rather than mouth platitudes while spouting off such obvious lies. Michael Avenetti should not be her role model.

inspectorudy | June 23, 2019 at 11:21 am

Ms. Amber is like the street thugs who do not know the law and say and do things that are clearly illegal. To think that she is the president of this college is a pure form of political correctness and not administrative ability. The board of this college has lost sight of the purpose of their role and that of the college. They have become SJW’s and not educators. Even though it will be against every instinct in their bodies, Oberlin college should dump this woman and the activist Raimondo ASAP!

whatapieceofworkisaman | June 23, 2019 at 1:15 pm

I see two scenarios:
1. Oberlin’s Board of Trustees (or it’s equivalent) and alumni wake up, take their lumps, clean house, settle, apologize, recalibrate, and move on.
2. The above does not happen, the current craziness continues, and the real world intervenes in the form of prospective students and their families voting with their feet with applications to the school plummeting. I don’t mean applications go down somewhat, but that they really tank.

Another thought is that even though Oberlin is demonstrably incapable of handling this fiasco, you can be darn sure more savvy institutions are taking note and will be adjusting their behavior accordingly.

    Mizzuo did have large drop in enrollment after their incident a few years ago.

      artichoke in reply to Joe-dallas. | June 23, 2019 at 5:29 pm

      I think that had a lot to do with the change in administration and the adoption of explicit SJW policies at Mizzou. Nobody in their right mind would go to a school in the condition to which Mizzou transformed itself. Even though there was nothing wrong with what they were doing before.

      In contrast, Oberlin isn’t budging on anything. Even though they were and are wrong.

    Subotai Bahadur in reply to whatapieceofworkisaman. | June 23, 2019 at 3:45 pm

    Or 2a. : Oberlin maintains its political purity at all costs and it becomes a martyr to the Left. True believers flock to them and they become an equivalent of a Soviet “Higher Party School”. They prosper until things go kinetic nationwide and it becomes a target rich environment.

    Missou suffered for their actions, but a) it is surrounded by Deplorables, and b) No Leftist would sacrifice their college years by knowingly going to a school full of P.O.-ed Deplorables who might traumatize them by not submitting. Thus they lost enrollment from both sides.

    Subotai Bahadur

whatapieceofworkisaman | June 23, 2019 at 1:17 pm

I see two scenarios:
1. Oberlin’s Board of Trustees (or its equivalent) and alumni wake up, take their lumps, clean house, settle, apologize, recalibrate, and move on.
2. The above does not happen, the current craziness continues, and the real world intervenes in the form of prospective students and their families voting with their feet with applications to the school plummeting. I don’t mean applications go down somewhat, but that they really tank.

Another thought is that even though Oberlin is demonstrably incapable of handling this fiasco, you can be darn sure more savvy institutions are taking note and will be adjusting their behavior accordingly.

whatapieceofworkisaman | June 23, 2019 at 1:18 pm

Sorry — it’s should be its. 🙂

I’m just tired of seeing that arrogant pose she adopts in this picture. This is about the 5 millionth time I’ve seen this in pictures or videos of black women, including “this is my daughter-in-law” pictures on an ordinary person’s cellphone.

    artichoke in reply to hopeful. | June 23, 2019 at 5:38 pm

    Let’s not make this about stereotypes or other such vague things. This is far more serious and concrete than that. It’s not about race.

      You’re not 100 correct – typical of these louses, they’ll pull the usual ‘race’ card in time. After all, besides lies, it’s all they’ve got.

      Better to be ready for it.

        artichoke in reply to TheFineReport.com. | June 23, 2019 at 9:54 pm

        And every time they do, I want to have a reply that they cannot diminish as being racist, but that cuts to the core of what they’ve done or the wrong thing they’ve said.

        I can see the patterns. But I don’t have to talk them or give anyone an excuse because of them. Ambar did what she did and she’s just as responsible as if she’d been any other color and done them.

There is a video on YouTube in which she gave a long speech to the Cleveland Club last year. She was surprisingly sober in that speech on the dire conditions of liberal arts colleges in general and of Oberlin itself.

In fact she said that during an Oberlin board meeting one board member questioned if Oberlin will still exist 18 years later for students who were born in 2018.

She was very concerned about the business model of Oberlin, about Moody’s rating on their bonds. Apparently there will not be enough tuition-paying students to support its “social responsibility”, which is the subsidization of other students.

It seems to me she is not ideologically extreme as some commentators imagined. But she inherited an administrative and advisory team that is more liberal than her yet not competent enough to handle crisis.

    tom_swift in reply to hoosac. | June 23, 2019 at 4:18 pm

    Apparently there will not be enough tuition-paying students to support its “social responsibility”, which is the subsidization of other students.

    This is not actually evidence of infection by SJW disease. Tuition at my alma mater—a school not generally considered to be anywhere near the forefront of the SJW revolution—is currently close to $52k. But there’s enough aid money floating around that about a third of undergraduates pay no tuition at all.

      hoosac in reply to tom_swift. | June 23, 2019 at 7:17 pm

      She did acknowledge Oberlin’s deep roots in “social justice”. But she is also very conscious about what the parents want from the college: jobs, ROI, and value proposition.

      If you watch that video you’d find that she is quite practical. But obviously she does not have crisis management experience and is restricted by the deep rooted ultra liberal administrative staff.

        artichoke in reply to hoosac. | June 25, 2019 at 1:01 pm

        You really bought it didn’t you? She says Oberlin will continue with what it was doing before and did nothing wrong. And you believe her nice words for a half hour in Cleveland?

        You could even see a couple of the questioners toward the end were very skeptical.

    artichoke in reply to hoosac. | June 23, 2019 at 9:56 pm

    It just means that her comments, meant to come off as passionate, are calculated.

    artichoke in reply to hoosac. | June 23, 2019 at 10:43 pm

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqGvlArtJ_o

    Her speaking style reminds me of Barack Obama. Lots of people copy Obama these days.

    artichoke in reply to hoosac. | June 23, 2019 at 11:03 pm

    The question at 51:00 is amazing to listen to. The audience member asks about town-gown tensions. Ambar says they have a “good neighbor” program bringing people from the town to campus so the students can get to know them, to know that they’re representing Oberlin when they’re in the town. Also there’s the “show downtown” day to encourage students to shop there.

    And yet — it’s not like that at all. They demand free shoplifting!

Tell a lie loud enough and long enough, and it becomes the truth for the dull of thought.

    Worse than that, tell that lie often and loud enough and you can attract other frothing Leftists who will give you enough money to make up for the money you lost. That’s their only path to solvency, because to actually *admit* the obvious fault will not garner any Leftist cash, and no conservative is going to send a dime to them anyway.

    So she stands up in front of every friendly media outlet she can, and lies her tail off for cash. If you ever wonder what price can be put on a human’s soul, look up her salary.

      artichoke in reply to georgfelis. | June 23, 2019 at 9:58 pm

      They still have a history of a good academic reputation and the quite cool “college & conservatory” situation. If they started admitting boy scouts and 4-H prize winners and nerds, they could reboot themselves as a good LAC with conservatory. This disaster does not have to be permanent.

      But they are true believers and are willing to use the tools of society, including Oberlin College, to advance their communistic agenda.

BrokeGopher | June 23, 2019 at 5:24 pm

Why are we trying to correct them? It would be a great benefit to everyone if universities believed they could be financially liable for their students’ actions.

When does Oberlin have to pay the judgment or pony up around that amount so as to appeal?

Professor, “A listener to the interview who was not familiar with the facts would not know that there was testimony by witnesses that Raimondo orchestrated the protest and the handed out of the defamatory flyers.”

Yeah but, they would know that universities and colleges these days support free speech like an Arizona summer supports snowmen. In other words, they would know Twillie was lying.

Media Coverage of Gibson’s Verdict Misses the Mark

Editorial Board|June 18, 2019

https://oberlinreview.org/18975/opinions/media-coverage-of-gibsons-verdict-misses-the-mark/

    Valerie in reply to Neo. | June 23, 2019 at 11:15 pm

    Oh, my. the jury didn’t buy that story. Could it be that the evidence said something else?

    MajorWood in reply to Neo. | June 24, 2019 at 12:47 am

    He/she/it should be attacking the Oberlin legal teams because clearly they failed to call all of these student witnesses who could have provided a completely different credible defense of both the “alleged” shoplifters and the defamation, sorry, attack on free speech, trial with Gibsons.

    He/she/it is not going to be happy outside of the bubble.

    artichoke in reply to Neo. | June 24, 2019 at 8:50 pm

    I tried to write to them using their comment section (comments don’t post but maybe they read them?) to tell them their adult leadership is lying to them. Regardless of what sort of crowd the admissions office has brought to campus, surely with responsible adults in charge they would be better than this.

    Responsible adults should not be lying like this to their students, many of whom aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer anyway, to recruit them to their leftist cause. It really is educational malpractice at this point.

Clearly the media has swallowed the Oberlin defense that admins had nothing to do with the protests, flyers, etc. The evidence was overwhelmingly against Oberlin. We can resist the desire of the media to sweep this under the rug by continuing to comment on this site, on Twitter, etc. Keep the truth alive.

    Silvertree in reply to Honu. | June 25, 2019 at 9:18 am

    Fantastic article:

    How Oberlin Played the Race Card and Lost
    Minding The Campus
    https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2019/06/24/how-oberlin-played-the-race-card-and-lost/

    From the article:

    ” The key question is: Why stick with a story that has been so discredited?

    Racism

    The answer is that people such as former President Krislov and Dean Raimondo have nowhere else to go. They have defined themselves and their college by a commitment to a narrow set of progressive imperatives. Among these are the propositions that America is a racist nation; that the pursuit of “social justice” overrides petty concerns about specific details or mere factual accuracy; that expression of “opinion” is self-justifying; and that the progressively enlightened few need to maintain solidarity against the unenlightened many. Oberlin College is right to disdain Gibson’s Bakery and the rest of the ignorant and foolish people who have not yet recognized the deep insights into humanity embodied in Oberlin’s revealed truths.”

Voice_of_Reason | June 24, 2019 at 6:54 pm

new motto: “Oberlin College, by idiots for idiots”