JUST DESSERTS

Oberlin College Agrees to Pay $36M to Local Bakery Over Racial Profiling Case

Gibson’s Bakery accused the college of defaming it after administrators attended student protests after a Black student was caught stealing alcohol from the shop.

After a protracted legal battle, Oberlin College will pay $36.59 million to a local Ohio bakery that accused the school of defaming it in the wake of a shoplifting incident by a Black student. In 2016, a white employee at Gibson’s Bakery caught the student with two bottles of the shop’s wine smuggled under his coat, and chased him out into the street. The confrontation resulted in several days of protests, where Oberlin students gathered in their hundreds—along with several administrators, including the dean of students—outside the storefront to protest the “RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT OF RACIAL PROFILING,” according to the bakery’s lawsuit. Earlier this year, a three-judge panel agreed that Oberlin was liable for libel, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and intentional interference with a business relationship. “Truth matters,” a lawyer for the Gibson family told The New York Times in an email Thursday. “David, supported by a principled community, can still beat Goliath.”