OPINION:
Oberlin College, my undergraduate alma mater, faces a reckoning. Here’s why.
Three and a half years ago, a Lorain County jury rendered a $44.2 million defamation verdict against Oberlin for wrongly, with its students, defaming Gibson’s Bakery and abetting a boycott of that storied bakery across the street from the school’s campus. The Ohio appellate court upheld that verdict earlier this year, and the Ohio Supreme Court just denied Oberlin’s petition for a further appeal. The verdict is the largest in Ohio’s history. And still, Oberlin has not paid the defamed bakery nor taken any accountability for its conduct.
The jury decided that Oberlin and its dean defamed Gibson’s and abetted a store boycott based on the lie that the Gibson family racially profiled Oberlin College minority students. A boycott of Gibson’s based on this smear and Oberlin’s cancellation of its contract with the family along with its tone-deaf refusal to seek a resolution of the dispute or pay damages to the Gibson’s have driven the bakery across the street from the college nearly broke.
Based on the upheld verdict, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, the students – now Oberlin graduates – behaved like “careless people” who irresponsibly “smash things and people up” and leave others to “clean up the mess they made.” Those others are Oberlin’s administration and its trustees, who also based on the verdict, acted irresponsibly in siding with the students.
Oberlin announced it will consider its next steps. One step should include an apology along these lines.
“Oberlin has had a history of social activism supporting the underground railroad, pioneering co-education integration, and promoting human and civil rights for marginalized peoples. We are justly proud of our history. For many years, we also were viewed as one of the foremost liberal arts colleges in America, with a reputation that fostered open discussion and debate.
“Writing about the Gibson’s incident following the recent appellate decision, Harvard law professor Noah Feldman gave some cautionary advice to colleges by noting: ‘As a matter of First Amendment law, libel isn’t free speech… If your statement was false and defamatory, you are liable — full stop.’
“We agree. But that is not the only reason we apologize and belatedly now seek to make amends.
“Oberlin’s prior president, a good man, testified at trial that labeling one a racist is among the worst accusations one can make against someone.
“Yet, Oberlin College students recklessly led a boycott of Gibson’s based largely on a false charge that the Gibson family were racists.
“That charge and the boycott that it led to betrayed Oberlin’s heritage.
“We regret that the Gibson family was smeared in this way and that its business was harmed by a boycott supported by a big, ugly, libelous lie.
“We regret that we did not speak out and renounce this ugly smear early or at least when the facts became known long ago.
“We regret that we lent support to these reckless students even long after the facts became known.
“We will work to heal the deep wounds that our conduct caused and/or abetted.”
Such a self-reflective statement would require humility and moral courage. But introspection and moral courage are rare qualities often lacking in any institution, especially in our times. As Robert F. Kennedy noted moral courage “is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence.” Because of this, I am skeptical that Oberlin, which has acted in a tone-deaf, defiant, and even vindicative manner throughout this period, will do the right thing now. I hope to be proven wrong.
• Mark Labaton is a seasoned litigator and a former Assistant U.S. Attorney.
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