Ohio jury awards $11 million to bakery owners targeted by Oberlin College student protests

Only IF the school was involved in the protest in some kind of official way AND there would have to be damages involved.

Basically, if the admins say "Hey, this school is NOT issuing any comment one way or the other and neither we nor officers/representatives of the school will be involved in ANY action in said protest" and then held to that statement in word and deed - the lawsuit against the school would have no real merit.

 

If your numbers are correct they make $168MM per year just in tuition. Their insurance will cover a significant portion of the distribution. They likely have D&O and/or a umbrella policy and since many institutions follow a $1MM policy to $5MM in income they may not even see the final bill.

While I am sure $11MM - $33MM is a blow to their ego, it isn’t really going to do much besides increase their insurance rates for a few years. It definitely won’t be a death knell.

 

The college obviously did something wrong, so why won’t the media tell us what? Better to blame the students rather than those who indoctrinated them.

 

This is freaking GREAT!!!!! About time a liberal college takes in in the anus for the actions of one of their own staff members for using their misinformed and overly dramatic student body as a weapon and their position to try to leverage a small owned local business to act against their own interests. Screw Oberlin. Maybe they will stop with the academia "holier than thou" liberal attitude. I hope the college realizes how hard Raimondo shoved it up Oberlin's ass with her knee jerk overly emotional SJW BS. She should have stayed out of it rather than offer support and inflaming the protests. Good on the jury. I can see that there is a good chance they might be awarded the 33 million. I hope they get it.

Documents reveal attempts to 'smear the brand' of Gibson's

"In other internal communications included in the filing, Raimondo allegedly “threatened to weaponize the student body” against a professor after he spoke out against the defamation and boycott of Gibsons, court documents said.

According to court documents, Vice President for Communications Ben Jones sent a text message saying, “(Expletive) ROGER COPELAND.”

“(Expletive) him,” Raimondo responded in a message. “I’d say unleash the students if I wasn’t convinced this needs to be put behind us.”

The court document also said that Oberlin College “demanded that (Gibson’s) not arrest or prosecute first time shoplifters at Gibson’s Bakery and even demanded that Oberlin College student shoplifters be reported to the college as opposed to the Oberlin Police Department.”

The document said the college demanded the bakery dismiss all criminal charges against the three students involved in the initial incident “as quid pro quo for resuming business with Gibson’s Bakery.”

Oberlin College had been purchasing goods from Gibson’s Bakery for decades prior to the protests. Court documents said Raimondo ordered the termination of business with the bakery shortly after the protests, which was ratified by the College President Marvin Krislov.

The filing also alleged that protesters followed Raimondo’s instructions to use the copy machine in the college’s Conservatory to make copies of a flyer that stated Gibson’s Bakery “is a racist establishment with a long account of racial profiling and discrimination.”

Raimondo also “communicated to the protesters using a megaphone and instructed the protesters as to where they could seek food and refreshment that would allow them to continue the defamatory protests,” court documents said.

Documents said Raimondo, using college resources, directed college employees to provide refreshments for the protesters. Raimondo also “approved the use of college funds to purchase gloves for the protesters,” the filing said."

http://www.chroniclet.com/cops-and-courts/2019/04/19/Gibson-39-s-Oberlin-suit-moves-forward.html



Meredith Raimondo
Vice President and Dean of Students


Education
PhD, Emory University, 1999
MA, Emory University, 1997
BA, Brown University, 1991

Biography
Meredith Raimondo is Oberlin’s latest vice president and dean of students after filling the position on an interim basis since July 2016.

As dean of students, Raimondo will lead Oberlin’s Division of Student Life that supports students by creating more seamless connections between curricular and cocurricular experiences, advising and mentoring focused on the development of life skills and interpersonal and personal growth, and building and bridging intellectual and personal communities. She previously served as special assistant to the president for equity, inclusion, and diversity and Title IX coordinator.

Raimondo joined the Oberlin community in 2003, as one of the professors in the newly formed Department of Comparative American Studies. CAS focuses on the comparative,” Raimondo said in 2003, how diversity affects Americans at home and abroad, and what this means when we look at the role of the United States in a global context.

She has taught courses spanning the themes of gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity studies, social justice, and HIV/AIDS.

In 2014, she was recognized with an Excellence in Teaching Award and later that year was appointed special assistant to the president for diversity, equity, and inclusion and Title IX coordinator, a position for which she oversees institutional policy to ensure all students’ needs are being met under Title IX guidelines.
https://www.oberlin.edu/meredith-raimondo

 

There you go, she just caused this college millions of social justice dollars.

 

I'm laughing my ass off

 

well was stupid of them to cancel the contract or even to have a contract, why are children eating bakery food for lunch, but regardless, how does that make them in the liable for the actions of the student protests

is a gun training school responsible for all the actions of their students on their own time

guess we will have to see how the appeals go, as something doesn't sound right about this

 

agree, that is my point, the school would have to be involved in the protest to be sued, and even then if a private school, they may have a right to organize a protest

didn't Trump take out full page ads against innocent black people, could they sue him or his businesses, I say only him, the one doing it, if they could argue the Trump brand is him, so he used the Trump brand to slander them, then maybe, but that would be a reach

 

Yeah, and they probably will continue to try to cover her ass.

 

It has nothing to do with Trump. What an idiotic post. Huge red herring. The Dean of Students did involve herself AND the school. It's pretty cool how one unhinged liberal with too much authority can screw a whole school. They hired a SJW to be a SJW and now it's gonna bite them.


Documents reveal attempts to 'smear the brand' of Gibson's

"In other internal communications included in the filing, Raimondo allegedly “threatened to weaponize the student body” against a professor after he spoke out against the defamation and boycott of Gibsons, court documents said.

According to court documents, Vice President for Communications Ben Jones sent a text message saying, “(Expletive) ROGER COPELAND.”

“(Expletive) him,” Raimondo responded in a message. “I’d say unleash the students if I wasn’t convinced this needs to be put behind us.”

The court document also said that Oberlin College “demanded that (Gibson’s) not arrest or prosecute first time shoplifters at Gibson’s Bakery and even demanded that Oberlin College student shoplifters be reported to the college as opposed to the Oberlin Police Department.”

The document said the college demanded the bakery dismiss all criminal charges against the three students involved in the initial incident “as quid pro quo for resuming business with Gibson’s Bakery.”

Oberlin College had been purchasing goods from Gibson’s Bakery for decades prior to the protests. Court documents said Raimondo ordered the termination of business with the bakery shortly after the protests, which was ratified by the College President Marvin Krislov.

The filing also alleged that protesters followed Raimondo’s instructions to use the copy machine in the college’s Conservatory to make copies of a flyer that stated Gibson’s Bakery “is a racist establishment with a long account of racial profiling and discrimination.”

Raimondo also “communicated to the protesters using a megaphone and instructed the protesters as to where they could seek food and refreshment that would allow them to continue the defamatory protests,” court documents said.

Documents said Raimondo, using college resources, directed college employees to provide refreshments for the protesters. Raimondo also “approved the use of college funds to purchase gloves for the protesters,” the filing said."

http://www.chroniclet.com/cops-and-courts/2019/04/19/Gibson-39-s-Oberlin-suit-moves-forward.html

 

I did not say it was about Trump, I said Trump did that.... geesh

and if all you say is true, that sounds like obstruction of justice to me - same as Trump is doing - promising to do something if charges dropped

didn't Trump threaten congress to stop investigating him or no Infrastructure deal for the people?

 

More like extortion. Drop the charges or we will illegally harm you. Jury says 11 million bucks worth of harm.

Your post was a red herring, Be honest for once. It was about Trump and Trump isn't what the thread is about.

 

Close the school. The left needs to learn a lesson. Evil actions that injure other will not go unpunished.

 

You've got race on the brain, Trump didn't mention blacks in the ad.

This dumb Dean of Students seems to think it racist to arrest thieves. She'd think differently if they broke in to her house.

 

Liberals are like a bad dog. Every once in a while, you have to swat them in the nose with a newspaper.

 

If anyone reads the entire story, you'd have to wonder why the jury stopped at $11 million. Not only was there shoplifting and an attempt to smear the bakery, there was a 3 on 1 assault on one of the bakers by the students and the college seems to want all charges against the assaulting students dismissed.

The more I learn about this story, the more disturbing it is.

 

looks like the Insurance company isn't going to pay for the law suit

EXCLUSIVE: Oberlin College insurer likely to reject coverage for Gibson Bakery $11 million verdict
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/...overage-for-gibson-bakery-11-million-verdict/

the 11 million plus the punitive damage is having to come our of the colleges own back pocket this actually could be the end of Oberlin College

 

Something that was overlooked was this:

Yep, there's your college admins in action. Even more telling: Those guys think of their clientele as trained hounds to be unleashed. Think about THAT for a minute and tell me that isn't disturbing; it sure as hell disturbs ME to think of people in education thinking this way.

 

I doubt it, its bad PR now, dragging it out will only make it worse. Best to cut the check and move on, the alumni will want this cleared and assurances that it won't happen again...

 

The demand for racist situations far exceeds the supply, hence the need to fabricate situations that don’t exist.

 

Deeply.

 

People like the ones involved from the school rarely analyze their actions — they are still claiming they have done nothing wrong. I doubt it goes that way.

 

That’s great but I still don’t agree that it will do much to the school. I may be wrong, I hope I am, but I don’t believe so.

First, we have the fact that the maximum damages are less than 20% of their tuition; that doesn’t include donations, grants, special income, goods sold, licensing and other contributions. Second, the final damages will likely be much much less than the $33MM maximum, “There will be post-trial motions to set aside the jury verdict and/or reduce the dollar amounts” and then there will appeals.

Seeing that the bakery made a significant portion of their revenue from the school, it’s staff and students they will still likely be the one to close. Unfortunately.

 

If the college survives this believe me there will be a good house cleaning any of the administration that were involved should be cleaning out their desk