Meh, with colleges and universities in the country exposed for cheating and bribery, this is pretty lame. |
Granted, my kid wants a music community in college. So, that has informed his looking. But, he’s likely applying to Rochester (Eastman), CWRU (Cleveland Institute) and Oberlin, with excellent conservatories. Northwestern has a great one. They aren’t rare. I believe Oberlin has either a 1/3 or 1/4 of its student body at the conservatory. And a decent number of kids who dual enroll. And they share a campus, unlike at Rochester. I think the Washington Post makes a good point that Oberlin and Lorrain have town and gown issues. The town is much more conservative than the college, and people who have loved there their who love and are conservative resent all the liberal kids— many of them more affluent and on their way to being more educated than the business owners, taking over the small town. Oberlin has started Community Relations training the students. Which they should. But flip in on its head. This bakery makes a lot of its income selling baked goods to Oberlin. And Oberlin is financially supporting most of the downtown. It’s pretty much the only game in town, financially. I’m not sure how much an $11 million judgment by conservative town members helps the community in the long term. The college would like to source locally. It’s part of their thing. But, if pushed, I’m sure they will find another bakery to use. Both sides need to take a beat here and consider the role they played in a shoplifting getting so far out of hand. It seems like the college is implementing programs. As they should. But, how much should the town stick it to the libs when they dependent on the libs to get bills paid? Maybe the town has a role to play in patching up town and gown relations too. |
Pretty much every college. But, most college students recognize the risk they are taking when they use fake IDs, and don't stomp their feet and attempt to sabotage a family-owned business and cry "racism!!!!" if/when they get caught. |
Hmm. Reminds me of those blaming the rape victim for wearing a short skirt. Except in this case the victim was wearing long pants and simply going on with his business until the mob decided to attack and the college decided to defame the victim. |
Exactly what role did the bakery place in "the shoplifting getting so far out of hand"???? Oberlin students broke the law and faced the consequences that one faces for breaking the law. Should the bakery just let kids buy alcohol even if they know they're not of age? Should they just stand their if people are stealing stuff from their establishment? Exactly |
It was interesting reading the subtle biases creeping out in your post. You went to quite some length to try to deflect as much blame from Oberlin and tried to castigate the town negatively with your comments implying uneducated, conservative (We get it, you think they're MAGA Trump voting idiots). As someone once said to me, the truth is always very simple and blatantly obvious. It's people who hide from the truth by building barricades of explanations and excuses. Oberlin is populated by faculty and staff and students who are dedicated SJWs. That is their mantra. That is who they are. Not all the faculty or students, but a substantial number of them to justify seeing the college in such a light. These people from Oberlin very rapidly jumped the gun because they were looking to pick a fight and thought they had a good one, a black student arrested in a bakery owned by small minded conservative white people. But the truth is clear: the black student was shoplifting and tried to steal a bottle of wine. The bakery staff stopped him. That is the truth. And what did Oberlin do? Go out of their way to immediately defame the bakery, launch a boycott of it, order suppliers not to work with the bakery, and all of this without investigating properly. And they tried to dig in and stick to their biases when the truth finally did emerge and even the black student himself admitted the arrest wasn't racially motivated. |
I applaud this ruling. I'm as liberal as they come, but it's students/admin like this who practically write the Daily Caller/Fox News/whatever headlines for themselves. |
No. And No. but that isn’t why Oberlin was sued. They aren’t responsible for college kids being college kids. They also weren’t sued because of the fight outside. Three kids were arrested for that, charged and plead guilty. So, re-read the article. Why was Oberlin sued? Because the kids protested the arrests and the college got dragged into it. The protests. Not the shoplifting. That’s where the town and gown relations broke down. And if you think Oberlin or it’s students will ever spend a penny in that shop again, you are wrong. And before, Oberlin placed regular orders for the cafeteria. No— the bakery doesn’t have to accommodate what they perceive to be SJW overreaction. But they should, if their customers are SJWs. There seem to be a lot of details left out. But it’s seems hard to believe this stands on appeal. Calling someone racist isn’t defamation, because it’s an opinion. And it isn’t tortious interference with business relations. If you have a right not to bake my gay wedding cake, I have a right not to buy my wedding cake from you, because I disagree with your values. As for both sides— for town gown relations to get this bad, yep, it is highly like.y both sides played a role. |
They aren’t my biases. The Washington Post arcticle noted Oberlin College went 80% or more Clinton. Lorain split 50/50. Once you separate out all the Oberlin faculty in a pretty small town, you have a conservative town. |
DP: I see what you're doing, blaming the victim first, and now the students, trying to excuse Oberlin. Sorry, Oberlin didn't "get dragged" -- they led the charge, in multiple ways. I hope they learn the lesson. |
+1 After reading the New Yorker article on Oberlin from about 2 years ago, these kids almost make me want to be a Republican. Which is horrifying. |
Definitely crossed it off our list after that article. This latest travesty just confirms it. |
Where is the evidence that the town played a role in this? I'm waiting for people to tell me what the town did that was wrong and contributed to the PR disaster for Oberlin. Or am I only seeing someone trying to help Oberlin save face by deflecting as much of the blame to the town? You know, the town isn't a single entity. A town constitutes of many people and institutions and businesses. What I read from your messages is that if Oberlin kids and administration were protesting, then the town must have done something wrong (when in fact the "town" had not done anything wrong in this particular case). |
Umm, the school reinstated its contracts with the bakery three months after the incident. |
It's not just Oberlin. Same or worse things have happened in Yale, Berkeley, Middlebury, Chapel Hill... |