Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 219 posts

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#111

Post by etempleton »

pc86 wrote: post #101
jerrya wrote: post #51

From the nytimes article, the judgment will be paid by Oberlin's insurance company, it will not come out of the endowment, they have not apologized, they are not accepting they were wrong, there have been no resignations. Meredith Raimondo, the Dean of Students at the time, who was passing out flyers and far more, nine months ago to accept a position as Vice President of Student Affairs at Oglethorpe University https…

Even if it were to come out of the endowment, it's what, 2-3% total? I don't know how much universities typically pull out of an endowment each year but a 3% total drop can't impact yearly budgets in any meaningful way.

Almost all endowment money is restricted, meaning it is earmarked for a specific purpose by donors. They can’t just pay out of the endowment. They would have to pay out of their operating revenue, which is probably not a reality because that is budgeted to the dollar.

So my guess is insurance may have paid the bill, but Oberlin will pay over time in the form of high premiums or something else. The biggest punishment to Oberlin will be the embarrassment of the actions. Heads should have already rolled for this.

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#112

Post by yardstick »

jerrya wrote: post #51

From the nytimes article, the judgment will be paid by Oberlin's insurance company, it will not come out of the endowment, they have not apologized, they are not accepting they were wrong, there have been no resignations. Meredith Raimondo, the Dean of Students at the time, who was passing out flyers and far more, nine months ago to accept a position as Vice President of Student Affairs at Oglethorpe University https…

> So what has Oberlin really learned?

That their insurance premium will rise only marginally next year.

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#113

Post by [deleted] »

scarface74 wrote: post #66
atdrummond wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not what happened here at all.

> If you witness a crime you can arrest the criminal He did not say “if you witness a crime you can call the police”. I don’t want a society where any random yokel thinks he can detain someone.

[deleted]

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#114

Post by aidenn0 »

hirundo wrote: post #18
vwoolf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being an educational institution should involve more than just indulging the students The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) free-speech rankings seem like a good proxy for this: https://www.thefire.org/research/publications/student-survey...

https://rankings.thefire.org/rank/school/oberlin-college : Ranking #135, Speech Climate: Slightly Below Average So, pretty normal.

A few things:

1. The total ranking is wholistic, it includes pressure felt both by peers and by faculty. Given "being the adult in the room" might include reigning in peer-pressure that's probably fine.

2. FWIW, It was ranked much better on "Administrative support"

3. Tolerance for conservative speakers: #197/203 (obviously there is a lot of self-selection of liberal students going to Oberlin, so it would be very easy to be the only person with a particular conservative viewpoint, and even easier to think you are).

Disclosure: My sister graduated from Oberlin 20 years ago. She was an avid line-dancer at the time and would change out of her boots before going back on campus.

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#115

Post by compiler-guy »

remarkEon wrote: post #99
fortran77 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I just looked on Twitter and see many, many Oberlin grads lamenting the Gibson's judgement and claiming that "everyone always knew" Gibson's was "racist" without any hard facts. Just one example: https://twitter.com/ejdickson/status/1566061809500622848 She's still calling people who pled guilty to shoplifting "alleged shoplifters." That's dishonest. Let's just say I don't hold by that school's accreditation.

Unrelated to your reply, but that twitter thread is truly bizarre. >The one thing about this that has always struck me as ludicrous is the argument that the student body serves as a tool of the colleges whims. Students fucking hate the administration and resist it at every turn, & always have…much like 19 yos at any liberal arts college Then why go to these schools? I don't understand why you'd pay $80k a year (just…

Generally, they don't hate the institution itself, but rather the administration, or at least aspects of it. It's a classic youth rebellion against authority.

They generally love their friends, love many of their teachers, and the environment, but they hate those who would enforce anything against what they think is right, or nice, or prudent.

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#116

Post by Kadin »

eganp wrote: post #94
jerrya wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, Oberlin's President sent out the following email which states their insurance will pay > Dear Obies, > Today, Oberlin College and Conservatory initiated payment in full of the $36.59 million judgment in the Gibson’s Bakery case, an amount that represents the awarded damages and interest owed. Please see the college’s public statement below. > While this outcome is a disappointment, our financial plans for…

I'm surprised the insurance will pay for this. The judgment, and actions by Oberlin's administration, strongly suggest they were acting in bad faith. The college's behavior exceed negligence, the typical threshold in these sort of insurance contracts. Pretty incredible Oberlin can get out of this considering what other insurers will do to avoid paying for incidents with cause.

> I'm surprised the insurance will pay for this.

Yeah I'm a bit surprised by that, too. The negotiations with their insurer must have been really something. Only thing I can imagine is that they cut some sort of deal that makes it worth the insurance company not trying to fight with them over it. Maybe they have to basically pay it back over time with interest..?

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#117

Post by Dylan16807 »

lajamerr wrote: post #31
dmitrygr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what punitive damages are - they are not required to be connected to the size of the damage, they are meant to punish the defendant for royally (in the judge's view) fucking up, and send a message to other similar defendants to not do such things And $5M in compensatory damages seems about right for 2 years of a successful small bakery

Honestly I'm not very keen on pinning blame/monetary responsibility on single individuals/companies to 'prevent/deter' unknown future crimes. We shouldn't be signaling with big punishments bigger than the crimes call for. We should carefully consider the crime based on the individual and how much punishment is appropriate for that individual to compensate the victim/deter that single individual/company from continuin…

> Edit: Apparently this is a unpopular opinion. All I am calling for is that punishment meets the crime.

Have you heard of "treble damages"?

I think treble damages are easily within the realm of fitting the crime. And the full $30M before interest is less than 3x the $11.5M in combined bakery and legal losses.

Also, you have to factor in the chance of getting punished. If a parking meter had a fifty cent fine for not paying, nobody would ever pay.

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#118

Post by crackercrews »

7402 wrote: post #109
crackercrews wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find the link, but I read recently that FIRE came out against this verdict because they believe it infringes free speech. I agree the FIRE rankings are a good resource. But it's worth pointing out that FIRE opposes this verdict.

That doesn't sound right. It doesn't match up with what I know of FIRE. I couldn't find anything to suggest that FIRE opposed the verdict in my searches. Please try to find the link - I'd like to see it. I did find one document [0] that was a legal filing that references some FIRE documents discussing speech codes, but that was it. FIRE didn't sign it, and as far as I can tell FIRE had nothing to do with the filing s…

I tried searching again but failed. I think I probably heard a mention of it on a podcast since I can't find a link. Maybe the Reason Roundtable? I am 90% certain this was FIRE I'm recalling.

I was caught off-guard because I generally agree with FIRE, and my first reaction was that this was an exception. It made me rethink about my reaction to the verdict. I can't think of another organization that fits this description in my mind. But I could be wrong!

I will continue thinking about where I saw or heard this and leave a link if I can find it.

Re: After a Legal Fight, Oberlin Says It Will Pay $36.59M to a Local Bakery

#119

Post by etempleton »

RhysU wrote: post #56
jerrya wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently, Oberlin's President sent out the following email which states their insurance will pay > Dear Obies, > Today, Oberlin College and Conservatory initiated payment in full of the $36.59 million judgment in the Gibson’s Bakery case, an amount that represents the awarded damages and interest owed. Please see the college’s public statement below. > While this outcome is a disappointment, our financial plans for…

> Like me, the majority of the campus was not here at the beginning of this matter in 2016. The buck stops with my predecessor. Delightful executive engineering of the slimiest sort. One gets paid to own the past at that level. Accepting the job requires due diligence on the past and being paid to own any uncertainty. That is one disgustingly cowardly sentence meriting immediate action by the board to throw this bum…

It is a poor public statement but the leader also probably needs to distance themselves from it in this official letter for the very reason of this discussion. They use some phrases that are particularly poor. Really their PR team and crisis communication team should do better, but I have seen worse.

“I was not here. The reason I am here has something to do with what happened.”

I would guess most of Oberlin’s leadership from the time of the incident has moved in. At least those who would be seen as culpable, fair or not.

Edit: yes, basically all new leadership since the incident: https://www.oberlin.edu/president. It may seem like they are distancing themselves, but, well, they are distant from it. They have probably spent their time at Oberlin cleaning up other people’s messes and are fairly exhausted by it. Not an excuse, but you can imagine it has lingered over their tenure.

Post reply on HN