Oberlin Colleges loses appeal in suit filed by local bakery

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/04/04/oberlin-colleges-loses-appeal-suit-filed-local-bakery

by leephillips • 4 years ago

58 32 4 years ago

insidehighered.com

xyzzy21• 4 years ago

Free speech is fine - it's slander that is problematic.

subjectsigma• 4 years ago

If even half of this wikipedia article is true, this bakery deserves every cent and more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson%27s_Bakery_v._Oberlin_C...

Basically the owner tried to stop a crime (shoplifting and underage drinking), and his reward was property damage (phone getting smashed), being physically assaulted, and losing large amounts of business after school administrators used their money and platform to "financially sanction" their business.

busterarm• 4 years ago

Reading about the whole situation turned me into a loyal Gibson's customer. I made my first online order when they won their verdict and always make a point to stop by and make a purchase on my way through the state.

gaoshan• 4 years ago

I remember when this all blew up and the way the Bakery was treated was outrageous. I don't even remember what the original dispute was over but I do remember what happened after and it was pretty awful and unreasonable.

muh_gradle• 4 years ago

I vaguely recall this story and just followed up on it reading the wikipedia page. I am very happy to see that Gibson won the case. They deserve every single cent. Absolutely pathetic behavior from the robber, the assaulters, the protestors, and the school.

FerretFred• 4 years ago

If the Uni continues to waste their(?) money to "prove a point", the bakery owners are going to be able to retire real soon now in the lap of luxury!

steve_g• 4 years ago

Well, the two owners referenced in the articles both died - one from cancer and one from general old age (>90 years).

tetromino_• 4 years ago

Jeffrey Sachs, a political science professor at Acadia University who often writes about free speech on campus, offered a similar opinion in a Twitter thread. He noted that the suit hinged on two actions: the libelous fliers distributed by staff and the Student Senate resolution.
“It’s the second action that really worries me. Basically, the court held that since Oberlin authorizes the student senate, subsidizes it, provides a supervisor, and allows it to post its documents on school property, it is legally responsible for the student senate’s speech,” Sachs tweeted.
While Sachs notes the dean erred in handing out the fliers, “the senate resolution issue feels much more complicated and nothing to celebrate.” The ruling, he suggests, implies that colleges must scrutinize the speech they provide a platform for and “have a legal duty to censor.”

Isn't the solution to clarify that the student senate is not an official body of the college and that its views do not represent the college's views? Require a disclaimer at the bottom of every student senate email, ask the senate to find its own funding, and the college ought to be in a much more defensible position legally. And as a side effect, a student senate which is financially and organizationally independent of the college will be a much better venue for real student free speech.

HelloNurse• 4 years ago

A student "senate" is necessarily official. Unofficial replacements should be, at minimum, multiple competing student unions.

AlanYx2• 4 years ago

Isn't the solution to clarify that the student senate is not an official body of the college and that its views do not represent the college's views

I don't even think that's necessary. Sachs is leaving out a lot of the context/facts in this case... my understanding is that what made the university liable for the student senate's actions is that the university administration started endorsing the position taken by the senate in various ways, for example by suspending business with the bakery in response to the senate's resolution.

tannedNerd2• 4 years ago

Yup the issue at stake isn't the fact that the student body senate put out those statements, it's that school administrators endorsed them and acted upon them. If the student senate had passed the resolution but Oberlin had not canceled contracts without compensation and admins hadn't handed out flyers there would be no case.

hedora2• 4 years ago

I don't think any solution involving spamming legal disclaimers is a good one.

devwastaken2• 4 years ago

Education is not a platform for personal politics and activism. Political activism suppresses the very idea of education, it creates a culture that only certain ideas are acceptable, and creates insular groups that remove diversity of thought. We are arriving to a Reagan 2.0 McCarthyism culture where disagreement on a number of issues equals unforgivable immorality. Where reaction is held higher than critical thought in 280 characters or less.

This is even worse considering these colleges receive public funding, these lawsuits are paid for by the tax payer one way or another. It makes fiscal and moral sense to bar funding to such institutions.

hedora2• 4 years ago

I guess we should start by burning all textbooks written after 1500?

Nothing good ever came from admitting the world is round, or letting women vote.

Don't get me started on the heresy of orbital mechanics...

devwastaken2• 4 years ago

None of those are relevant comparisons to what modern 2022 activism is. Orbital mechanics can be proven, offense over words or actions far less so.

mindslight• 4 years ago

Sure, but that's orthogonal to the question of whether an institution has a duty to censor speech flash mobs perpetuated by its members. Two wrongs don't make a right.

AnimalMuppet• 4 years ago

Given which side is doing the activism here, calling it "Reagan 2.0 McCarthyism" seems really odd...

asguy• 4 years ago

It’s strange how the pendulum swings isn’t it? Almost like the Horseshoe Theory has validity.

throwawaylinux• 4 years ago

Would that be the "side" which has been busy denouncing their political opponents as Russian traitors, for the past 6 or 7 years?

hindsightbias• 4 years ago

Make no mistake, the gears of lawsuit selection and curation are well underway to bring the framework of change from lower courts to the New Supreme Court.

The consequences of the 2016 election will last at least a generation.

boppo1• 4 years ago

I don't understand what you're saying, please elaborate.

alsaaro3• 4 years ago

Oberlin is legally and financially responsible for the speech of its adult students?

Are Universities and corporations responsible for the speech, views, and research of their professors and employees? This absolutely chills speech; public groups must now censor the actions of their individual members or find themselves liable legally for their ostensibly protected 1st Amendment rights.

If you are a free speech absolutist or even believe in culture of free speech, which includes factually incorrect or unpopular speech, this is a troubling ruling.

tannedNerd2• 4 years ago

" this is a troubling ruling." No its not, there are limits to free speech and those limits end at slander and libel. The university pushed statements as fact that were proven to be untrue and libelous in court.

"This absolutely chills speech; public groups must now censor the actions of their individual members or find themselves liable legally for their ostensibly protected 1st Amendment rights."

If the admin hadn't joined in an official capacity handing out flyers, canceling contracts, and posting libel to their own website there would be no case about the students protesting. Workers are still free to do this on their own time, but the second they do it as a part of their work, then the public group should be held responsible as that group has now made a public policy decision.

alsaaro3• 4 years ago

I accept there are legally recognized limits to free speech, but Oberlin is not doing any speaking, their students are.

From an institutional perspective, if you don't believe in policing your adult student's speech, or actions, are you legally liable. With this ruling you are perversely, in a manner antithetical to free discourse, and freedom of association, to police people and their politics.

Imagine if South African businesses sued Universities for their boycott of Apartheid era South African goods. Or if the Claiborne Hardware Stores succeeded in suing the NAACP for damages as a result of their boycott in 1960s Mississippi.

The aforementioned are widely considered virtuous; they were on the "right side of history" but remember the First Amendment also protects those lacking scruples and virtues too.

ThrowawayR2• 4 years ago

"Are Universities and corporations responsible for the speech, views, and research of their professors and employees?"

Corporations have been liable for the behavior of their employees when acting in their official capacity, for ages. How is this surprising? Otherwise, software professionals like you and I would be personally liable for bugs that harm others.

The misbehaving college employees should have declared (or should have been required to declare by the college) that their actions were in an individual capacity, not as a representative of the college, and absorbed the full penalty of the ruling as individuals as a consequence of their actions.

tiahura• 4 years ago

Otherwise, software professionals like you and I would be personally liable for bugs that harm others.

That is incorrect. The tortfeasor is always liable. In other words, there may be ways to ALSO hold the employer liable, but the person who was actually negligent and caused the harm is ALWAYS liable. You can sue the pizza delivery guy - he hit you - or you can sue the restaurant, or both.

Now, you’re not going to get sued personally over a bug, probably, but that’s because there’s no need and it wouldn’t get plaintiff any more money. That said, there are various reasons why you might be named, perhaps some insurance policy issue, or jurisdictional shenanigans, or whatever.

Manuel_D3• 4 years ago

Oberlin is not responsible for the speech of its students. It's responsible for its own speech. It wasn't just students who falsely accused the bakery of racism. Oberlin echoed the students and made its own false accusations of racism against the bakery and among other things. That's what the lawsuit is about.

The wikipedia entry has better details on the case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson%27s_Bakery_v._Oberlin_C...

Oberlin Colleges loses appeal in suit filed by local bakery

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