You just know the dean of Oberlin is scrounging around under every couch cushion and behind every dresser looking to come up with the change for this:
Oberlin College, known as a bastion of progressive politics, said on Thursday that it would pay $36.59 million to a local bakery that said it had been defamed and falsely accused of racism after a worker caught a Black student shoplifting.
The New York Times doesn't have to be so coy about it, of course. The bakery didn't "say" it was defamed; it was defamed, to wit:
The incident that started the dispute unfolded in November 2016, when a student tried to buy a bottle of wine with a fake ID while shoplifting two more bottles by hiding them under his coat, according to court papers.
Allyn Gibson, a son and grandson of the owners, who is white, chased the student out onto the street, where two of his friends, also Black students at Oberlin, joined in the scuffle. The students later pleaded guilty to various charges.
That altercation led to two days of protests; several hundred students gathered in front of the bakery, accusing it of having racially profiled its customers, according to court papers.
Ho-hum, pretty standard operating procedure, right? "College students encounter something difficult or unpleasant and immediately start screaming RACIST."
Status quo.
But it didn't stop there:
The lawsuit filed by Gibson's contended that Oberlin had defamed the bakery when the dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, and other members of the administration took sides in the dispute by attending the protests, where fliers, peppered with capital letters, urged a boycott of the bakery and said that it was a "RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT OF RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION."
Gibson's also presented testimony that Oberlin had stopped ordering from the bakery but had offered to restore its business if charges were dropped against the three students or if the bakery gave students accused of shoplifting special treatment, which it refused to do.
Oberlin didn't realize it, but by showing up at that rally and trying to force the bakery to bend to its will, the school was effectively saying:
Yes it was. A part of it to the tune of $36 million. Enjoy that well-earned payday, Gibson's.
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