Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo reportedly joined the massive protests and even handed out a flier denouncing the bakery as a racist business. When some people contacted Oberlin to object that the students admitted guilt, special assistant to the president for community and government relations Tita Reed wrote that it did not change a “damn thing” for her. Reed also reportedly participated in the campus protests.
Other faculty members encouraged students who denounced the bakery. The chairman of Africana studies posted, “Very proud of our students!” Oberlin barred purchases from the bakery, pending its investigation into whether this was “a pattern and not an isolated incident.” Raimondo also pressured Bon Appetit, a major contractor with the college, to cease business with the bakery. Reed even suggested that “once charges are dropped, orders will resume” and added that she was “baffled by their combined audacity and arrogance to assume the position of victim.”
The jury in June 2019 awarded the Gibsons $44 million in compensatory and punitive damages. A judge later reduced the award to $25 million. That was upheld and the appellate court also upheld an award of $6.2 million payment in attorney fees. Now interest has pushed the reduced award back up to roughly $36 million but you then have to add the attorney fees and the college’s own towering legal costs. That is likely to put the total back to near the original $44 million award.
It takes considerable work to burn over $40 million on such a case. Yet, time and again President Ambar and the college threw more money into a losing hand like a bad gambler at Vegas while refusing to apologize for the college’s reprehensible record in the case.
As the grocery recently warned that it might have to shutdown due to the lack of funds and drain of litigation, the college fought to pay the damages.
The Ohio Supreme Court finally ended this farce by refusing to hear a new appeal on jurisdictional grounds. It voted 4-3 to end further litigation.
In a statement, Oberlin College expressed disappointment but not an apology: