Verdict and responses

In June 2019, the jury found in favor of the Gibson family, awarding $11 million in compensatory damages, before further hearings on punitive damages and legal fees.[22]
Oberlin released a statement disagreeing with the outcome, asserting it not only did not defame the bakery, but also attempted to repair the damage caused by the protests. "Colleges cannot be held liable for the independent actions of their students. Institutions of higher education are obligated to protect freedom of speech on their campuses and respect their students' decision to peacefully exercise their First Amendment rights."[10] Attorney Lee Plakas representing the Gibson family in the trial responded "The recent efforts of Oberlin College and President Ambar to reframe this as a First Amendment issue, while undermining the jury's decision, should be incredibly concerning to us all. Oberlin College was never on trial for the free speech of its students. Instead, the jury unanimously determined that Oberlin College libeled the Gibsons." Oberlin College president Carmen Twillie Ambar told CBSN, "The jury found those statements in the flyer, and in the Senate Resolution, were statements that they thought were libelous. What we've been saying is we didn't write those statements... The college didn't construct the flyer, the college didn't condone the flyer, it didn't write the Student Senate resolution... There was one administrator there who was representing the institution, and the student handbook requires her to be there... There may have been some professors who were there operating in their own individual capacity, but they weren't representing the institution."[23]
The jury later awarded the plaintiffs $33 million in punitive damages, for a total award of $44 million. At the end of the month, Judge John Miraldi reduced the total award to $25 million because state law limits punitive damages.[24] In July 2019, the court ordered Oberlin to pay an additional $6.5 million as reimbursement for Gibson's attorney fees and other legal expenses.[25]


Trial evidence

Oberlin's dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, as well as other college officials joined the protestors, bringing them pizza, authorizing the purchase of winter gloves for students protesting in cold weather, and helping pass out flyers urging passersby to boycott Gibson's.[8] Jason Hawk, a reporter and editor with the Oberlin News-Tribune testified that Raimondo blocked him repeatedly from photographing the protest, telling him that he did not have a right to photograph the student protestors and handed him a flyer that read "This is a RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION."[7][20]
Local police records showed no previous accusations of racial profiling by Gibson's Bakery.[8] Of the forty adults arrested for shoplifting from the bakery in a five-year period, only six were black. As a part of the three students' guilty plea in August 2017, each read a statement saying, "I believe the employees of Gibson’s actions were not racially motivated. They were merely trying to prevent an underage sale." Reporters obtained an email written by Emily Crawford, an employee for the school's communications department, telling her bosses that she found the protests "very disturbing," saying, "I have talked to 15 townie friends who are poc (persons of color) and they're disgusted and embarrassed by the protest. In their view, the kid was breaking the law, period... To them this is not a race issue at all."[10] During the trial, Eddie Holoway, a black man who worked his way through technical college while working at Gibson’s Bakery, testified that the racist allegations against his former employer were untrue. "In my life, I have been a marginalized person, so I know what it feels like to be called something that you know you’re not. I could feel his pain. I knew where he was coming from."[10] Clarence 'Trey' James, a black man employed at Gibson's since 2013, testified that he had observed no racist treatment of customers or employees. "Never, not even a hint. Zero reason to believe, zero evidence of that."[21] Trey also told the student-run Oberlin Review, "When you steal from the store, it doesn't matter what color you are. You can be purple, blue, green; if you steal, you get caught, you get arrested."[18]
During the trial, the defense said that the lawsuit was an attempt by the bakery to "profit from a divisive and polarizing event..."[7] Oberlin argued that purchasing food and gloves for protesters was not an endorsement of the protests. It also argued that the two-month suspension of Gibson's dining hall agreement was an attempt to de-escalate the protests, but Gibson's replied that students interpreted the decision as the school taking the side against the bakery, inflaming the protests instead.[8] Oberlin also argued that any statements that may have been made about the Gibsons being racist or having a history of racial profiling were opinions and could not be libelous.[19]