“Woke” means overly compassionate, to the point of absurdity, right?
It doesn’t mean driving a family business to the point of failure and refusing to make amends, certainly.
But after students and officials of Oberlin College in Ohio mischaracterized a local bakery as being run by racists, destroying the shop’s reputation and valuable ties with the school, the school still hasn’t paid a court-ordered settlement and school officials seem to be getting away scot-free.
Except that Oberlin’s costs could be mounting up.
Oberlin was ordered by a judge in 2019 to pay $36 million in damages to Gibson’s Bakery, and last month was told it must pay an additional fee, about $4,000 per day for each of the 1,000 days it has so far refused to pay up, reported The Chronicle in Ohio.
The saga began with a black student trying to shoplift a bottle of wine from the store in 2016, and getting caught. Two other black students who were present escalated the confrontation, and quickly took matters to college officials.
Ex-Oberlin Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo spearheaded a campaign claiming that bakery staff had racially profiled the three black students, even though all later admitted to the shoplifting. Protests and a boycott followed, led by Raimondo, leading nearly to the bakery’s failure.
The Gibson family won the hefty defamation payout in 2019, but so far Oberlin has refused to pay up, asking for extensions to pay the Gibsons because of a pending appeal of the ruling against them. That appeal is set to be heard by the Ohio Supreme Court, after two lower courts blocked Oberlin’s attempts to weasel out of paying and making amends.
Lawyers for the Gibsons say Oberlin failed to file the correct documents in their latest delaying tactic, and must pay up. A legal stalemate continues.
Meredith Raimondo, the dean of students who stoked the protests against Gibson’s, left the school and now works comfortably at a different school, Oglethorpe Liberal Arts College in Atlanta.
