After a six year legal battle, a family-run bakery has finally managed to collect the $25 million in damages a jury awarded it for being smeared and defamed as racist by Oberlin College, one of America’s most left-wing colleges. Oberlin also had to pay $11 million in interest on the jury verdict, adding up to a total payment of $36.6 million.
“All funds have been disbursed and that the family is continuing with the process of rebuilding Gibson’s Bakery,” said the bakery’s lawyer Brandon McHugh told WKYC.com. The damage to the bakery’s reputation, and the College’s discouraging students and staff to patronize it, left it on the verge of bankruptcy.
The $25 million verdict was upheld by the Ohio appeals court, and the Ohio Supreme Court turned down the college’s appeal this year. “Oberlin is disappointed that the Ohio Supreme Court has chosen not to hear our appeal of the Gibson’s Bakery judgment against the college,” the college said. “The issues raised by this case have been challenging, not only for the parties involved, but for the entire Oberlin community.”
The payment brings to an end a six-year saga beginning in 2016, when Allyn Gibson chased out of the store several black Oberlin students who stole wine.
The College Fix previously reported:
Despite the students’ admissions of guilt, campus racial grievance groups took action to harm the bakery. Student groups accused Gibson’s of having racially profiled the three students and pushed Oberlin to sever all ties with the bakery, which had supplied its cafeterias with food.
Soon, the Oberlin Student Senate passed a resolution stating Gibson’s “had a history of racial profiling and discriminatory treatment.” Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo joined the demonstrations, using a bullhorn to shout that the Gibsons were “racist.”
With Oberlin faculty joining in the push to sever ties with the bakery, the college then suspended its ties with Gibson’s between November 14, 2016 and January 30, 2017.
This Fall, College Fix editor Matt Lamb visited Gibson’s Bakery. At the time, Lorna Gibson, the widow of the late David Gibson, and Allyn’s mother, was not sure if Oberlin would ever pay up.
“If I got the money from the college, I wouldn’t buy a house, or go on vacation, or leave Ohio,” she wrote earlier this year. “I would replace the compressors for the refrigerators and replace the fryers and proofers that we use for our dough. I would pay off the mortgages on my properties that I’ve taken out in the past few years. I’d hire back employees and ramp up production.”
She said the bakery was close to bankruptcy.
Oberlin is a very lefty place where even heterosexual students label themselves as LGBTQ to be trendy. 51 percent of Oberlin students identify as LGBTQ.
In 2013, the school had a series of hate crimes faked by liberal students, and in 2015, an appearance by feminism critic Christina Hoff Sommers prompted students to create a special “safe space” for students who felt emotionally traumatized by her lecture.
Oberlin students frequently make strident left-wing demands related to race, such as
- The establishment of special, segregated black-only “safe spaces” across campus, including in the central library and the school’s science building.
- The creation of a bridge program that will recruit recently-released prisoners to enroll at Oberlin for undergraduate courses.
- A 40% increase in the number of black students in the school’s jazz department by 2022 (demands related to the jazz department are in general very numerous).
- The elimination of the school’s No Trespass list, which bars certain individuals deemed unsafe from entering campus, because it includes blacks in disproportionate numbers.
- “A more inclusive audition process in the Conservatory that does not privilege Western European theoretical knowledge over playing ability.”
- Adding Africa-centric course requirements for all departments that have existing Western civilization-themed course requirements. For example, history majors are required to take a U.S. history course, so they should also be required to take a course on African history prior to 1800.
- An $8.20/hour stipend for black student leaders who are organizing protest efforts
- The creation of a school busing system for Oberlin, Ohio’s K-12 schools, paid for by the college.
- The immediate firing of eight college employees for various offenses, including music theory professor Allen Cadwallader for “the racist undertones of his course as well as the way in which he treats black Jazz who take his course, which is rooted in white supremacy.”
