We've been following the ordeal of Gibson's Bakery in Oberlin, Ohio since it first arose in 2016. A woke mob scurrilously accused the small business of racism in the aftermath of a shoplifting incident. Read the infuriating details here. Oberlin College, a notoriously liberal institution, join in on the smear in several key ways. The family that owns the bakery sued the school. They won. This past spring, an appeals court upheld the verdict. And last week, a final appeal was exhausted.
It's time -- at long last -- for the college to pay up:
Ohio's Oberlin College on Thursday said it will pay nearly $37 million to a local bakery that sued the school for libel following a 2016 shoplifting incident involving three Black students. The Ohio Supreme Court last month declined to hear Oberlin's appeal of a lower-court ruling ordering the college to pay $25 million to Gibson's Bakery, which accused the college of branding the store as racist and harming its business as result...Plakas Mannos, the law firm representing the bakery, celebrated Oberlin's decision not to pursue additional appeals. "Truth still matters, and David has overcome Goliath," the law firm said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch. "Now, the Gibsons will be able to rebuild the business their family started 137 years ago and keep the lights on for another generation."
They reached the end of the legal line, and the bill for indulging out-of-control, slanderous wokeism finally came due. Some in the media are framing the outcome as a voluntary gesture by Oberlin (which fought and lost in court), arising from an unsettled dispute:
Oberlin College has agreed to pay $36.59 million to a bakery that said it was falsely accused of racism after it caught a student shoplifting. https://t.co/8VW04H7m7j
— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 9, 2022
Really CNN? "Claim" -- they got a large defamation judgment in court that was upheld by the Ohio supreme court! pic.twitter.com/8llVdjrshM
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) September 12, 2022
I suppose Oberlin could have figured out some way to keep their appeals alive for a bit longer, but covering this as if the college has "agreed" to do something is only true in the same sense that I've "agreed" to pay my taxes. The school didn't have a choice. They were sued for egregious conduct, they got walloped with a verdict requiring them to pay out hefty damages, then they lost multiple appeals. They're now paying tens of millions of dollars to a business they foolishly maligned (for reckless ideological reasons) because they have no choice in the matter. And the family that owns the bakery is not merely 'claiming' that or 'saying' that they were falsely accused of racism. The facts of the case were presented to a jury, which determined that's exactly what happened, a decision that has now been upheld multiple times. Gibson's is claiming they were falsely accused of racism because they were falsely accused of racism. And they'll receive $37 million for their trouble. They say 'justice delayed is justice denied.' This process took the better part of seven years to unfold, but at least justice is finally being served, and a leftist institution has been forced to face the wages of participating in runaway wokeness. Meanwhile, here's another blow delivered against left-wing identity obsessives:
NEW: Google has scrapped the diversity requirements for its PhD Fellowship after prominent civil rights lawyers told the Free Beacon that the criteria were illegal.
— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) September 12, 2022
A Google spokesperson said the change was meant to "clarify our nomination criteria.”https://t.co/JJkBdPQ0nb
Google and IBM are quietly backtracking in the wake of Washington Free Beacon reports about the companies capping the number of white and Asian students whom universities can nominate for prestigious research fellowships, which required that half of each school’s nominees be underrepresented minorities. Both companies dropped the caps after lawyers told the Free Beacon that they likely violated civil rights laws. The fellowships, which provide graduate students with generous stipends and mentorship opportunities, still ask schools to nominate a diverse pool of candidates, but no longer limit how many whites and Asians can apply. Just two weeks ago, Google insisted its nominating criteria for the Google Ph.D. Fellowship were legal, describing them as "extremely common" and maintaining that they followed "all relevant laws." Since then, however, the tech giant has replaced its diversity mandates with suggestions. "If more than two students are nominated," the new nominating criteria state, "we strongly encourage additional nominees who self-identify as a woman, Black / African descent, Hispanic / Latino / Latinx, Indigenous, and/or a person with a disability."
One wonders about the extent to which such discrimination will shift from being overtly and explicitly stated in official policy, to being quietly enforced with less of a paper trail. But it's still encouraging to see powerful tech titans backpedaling like this. Before you go, read this story about what appears to have been another false allegation of racism. Brigham Young University conducted an exhaustive investigation into an accusation that racial slurs were directed at members of the Duke women's volleyball team. The probe, which entailed interviews with dozens of attendees and an extensive review of footage and recordings, found zero evidence to support the allegation. For what it's worth, Duke is standing behind its athletes' claim. And then there are the moments when clumsy practitioners of woke identity politics discredit themselves by insulting everyone's intelligence in the dumbest possible manner:
People serious about racism don't use it as scapegoat for why they wrongly made taxpayers pick up the bill for 30K+ in upgrades to first class: https://t.co/w7cDuFLpcH
— AG (@AGHamilton29) September 11, 2022
Mayor LaToya Cantrell told local reporters Thursday she won’t fork over the exorbitant fees she charged for the upgraded tickets, including an $18,000 first-class trip to France over the summer. Since January 2021, Cantrell has charged the city of New Orleans $29,000 to travel first- or business-class instead of coach, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported...Her defiance goes against the city’s travel policy, which states that New Orleans municipal workers must select the cheapest fight — or pay back the difference. Meanwhile, Cantrell last month defended the sky-high amount of taxpayer dollars she spent on herself by claiming it was all about her safety — and not luxury. “As all women know, our health and safety are often disregarded and we are left to navigate alone,” she told the Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate in August. “As the mother of a young child whom I live for, I am going to protect myself by any reasonable means in order to ensure I am there to see her grow into the strong woman I am raising her to be,” she continued. “Anyone who wants to question how I protect myself just doesn’t understand the world Black women walk in.”
Ah, she needed taxpayers to fund her first class upgrade to Paris for her "protection" and "safety" as a black woman and mother, you see. Exactly zero people believe this nonsense, including the shameless politician pushing it.