After a legal battle spanning several years, Oberlin College has finally agreed to pay $36.59 million in damages to a local bakery for falsely accusing the business owners of racism.
Oberlin had repeatedly appealed a lower court ruling which found that the college, in 2016, defamed Gibson’s Bakery after a shoplifting incident involving three black students.
Lorna Gibson, the owner of the bakery, wrote about the emotional and financial pain the discrimination claims caused her family and the business, which had been a fixture in the community since 1885. David Gibson, her husband, paused his cancer treatments when the trial started several years ago, and died before Oberlin decided to pay the sum. Her father-in-law, Allyn Sr. also died several months before her family was paid by the college.
On August 30, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that it would not hear the college’s appeal.
“We are disappointed by the Court’s decision. However, this does not diminish our respect for the law and the integrity of our legal system. This matter has been painful for everyone. We hope that the end of the litigation will begin the healing of our entire community,” Oberlin said Thursday in a press release.
Oberlin added that it “has initiated payment in full,” representing the total damages awarded and interest, and that “is awaiting payment information from the plaintiffs.”
Gibson wrote on September 1 that if her family ever saw the money from Oberlin, she “wouldn’t buy a house, or go on vacation, or leave Ohio,” but would instead “replace the compressors for the refrigerators and replace the fryers and proofers that we use for our dough . . . pay off the mortgages on my properties that I’ve taken out in the past few years . . . hire back employees and ramp up production.”
“While the Ohio Supreme Court’s recent decision has made us hopeful, if the money doesn’t come through within the next couple months, I’ll be forced to declare bankruptcy and shut the doors of Gibson’s for good,” Gibson added.
In 2016, a clerk at Gibson’s Bakery refused to sell wine to a black student who had a fake I.D., and saw that the student was attempting to steal more bottles without paying. The shoplifting confrontation devolved into a physical altercation between three black students and the clerk.
Oberlin and the student body did a significant amount of business at the bakery, and before the three students pled guilty to the shoplifting, the students began accusing the bakery of discrimination.
A school administrator at Oberlin helped hand out flyers during a protest about the bakery, Oberlin stopped doing business with the bakery, and the school Senate was allowed to issue a statement saying, “a Black student was chased and assaulted at Gibson’s after being accused of stealing… Gibson’s has a history of racial profiling and discriminatory treatment of students and residents alike.”
Oberlin argued that it was protecting the students’ First-Amendment rights by letting them protest, but a lower court ruled that the school defamed the bakery by not putting a stop to the discrimination claims and, in the case of the administrator who handed out flyers, endorsing them.
Following the supreme court’s decision, the trial team and the Gibson family released a statement celebrating the outcome and accusing Oberlin of trying to confuse the relevant facts of the case.
“Oberlin tried to frame this case with claims and issues that weren’t on trial. This has never been a case about a student’s first amendment rights. Individuals’ reputations should never be sacrificed at a false altar of free speech,” the statement read. “The Gibsons and the entire State of Ohio should appreciate that the jury, a unanimous Ninth District Court of Appeals, and a majority of the Justices on the Ohio Supreme Court recognized that the deplorable conduct of Oberlin College could not be camouflaged by misleading claims of free speech.”