As you probably know by now, the $32 million verdict in favor of Gibson’s Bakery against Oberlin College and former Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo was upheld by a appeals court in Ohio. Details are in my post just after the appellate decision was rendered, Appeals Court Upholds Gibson’s Bakery Massive Verdict Against Oberlin College. We await the likely attempt by the defendants to convince the Ohio Supreme Court to take the case, which is discretionary.
Multiple readers sent me the link to a fair and insightful column by Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman, Colleges Should Pay Heed to Oberlin’s Costly Libel Case: “If colleges still thought there was little risk in taking up their students’ causes, they should reconsider in light of what has happened to Oberlin College.”
Reading that column, I recalled my own analysis in a speech at the James Wilson Institute given in November 2019, explaining the background that a lot of people don’t know. So I thought I’d re-up that post and video, particularly since we have a lot of new readers in the past two-and-one half years since that speech.
So here it is:
On November 1, 2019, I gave a lecture for the James Wilson Institute, titled Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin: Identity Politics on Trial. The lecture was held at the Hillsdale College center in D.C.
JWI delivered a special treat for attendees, Gibson’s Bakery cookies!
Fortunately, the video was not yet running so there are no images of me wolfing down the cookies double-handed style.
The cookie order was accompanied by this note from Lorna Gibson (David Gibson’s wife) with some of the other items sold at the store.
The video of the lecture is below. I don’t have a transcript.
I covered my theory of why you cannot understand the reaction to the shoplifting arrests unless you understand the history of social justice warfare at Oberlin College, and weak and complicit involvement of the prior administration. I then walked through various incidents we have covered, particularly The Great Oberlin College Racism Hoax of 2013, that predated the Gibson protests. I also spent a lot of time talking about Oberlin College’s perplexing and offensive demonization of the bakery and the Gibson family, both before and at trial. I discussed some of the evidence in the case, but my job was not to argue for or against the verdict, but to understand it.
The lecture was followed by a question and answer session that covered not only the case, but some of my experiences at Cornell.
Here you go:
[Featured Image: The late David Gibson explaining shoplifting incident][via police body cam video]
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