[jerrya]

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://oberlinreview.org/25680/news/former-dos-meredith-rai...

From the NYTimes:

> In a statement, Oberlin said that “this matter has been painful for everyone.” It added, “We hope that the end of the litigation will begin the healing of our entire community.”

> The college acknowledged that the size of the judgment, which includes damages and interest, was “significant.” But it said that “with careful financial planning,” including insurance, it could be paid “without impacting our academic and student experience.” Oberlin has a robust endowment of nearly $1 billion.

So what has Oberlin really learned?

[tptacek]

There is no requirement that Oberlin learn anything here. The law pretty severely limits the extent to which civil damages can be used to teach lessons, as we just learned from the Alex Jones case: punitive damages are capped, constitutionally, at some low multiple of economic damages.

It is an enormous defamation award, regardless of how you feel about where it leaves Oberlin.

[FreakLegion]

Note that these are state laws. The Alex Jones judgment still has to wind its way through appeals, but like you say there's a good chance the cap will be protected by the Texas Constitution.

Ohio (Oberlin) has a similar cap, but not necessarily the same protection for it. Missouri for example also had a cap, but it was held to violate the Missouri Constitution in 2014.

The Missouri case[1] came up last month post-Alex Jones, and its "separation of powers" argument is interesting. There's a professor at Georgetown who thinks a similar argument could succeed in Texas[2], but Texas at least tried to amend their Constitution to allow the cap[3].

1. https://www.courts.mo.gov/file.jsp?id=77893

2. https://twitter.com/HeidiLiFeldman/status/155561806384372121...

3. https://twitter.com/EricColumbus/status/1555919948807028736, but the seven replies at https://twitter.com/HeidiLiFeldman/status/155594159820624691... find some flaws in the implementation

[woooooo]

Maybe we could hold Oberlin to a higher standard than Alex Jones?

If their goal is to make a total joke of the movements they support, they're doing a bang-up job. If their goal us anything else, maybe they should try and learn something.

[tptacek]

It has nothing to do with the relative standards, and everything to do with the idea of not allowing the courts to impose arbitrary punishments, a capability that would with absolute and perfect certainty be abused to target disfavored people and organizations.

[woooooo]

I was more on the "what has Oberlin learned" part of it.

[stefan_]

Nobody was talking about the law. The law also doesn't say they need to release a statement, yet they did, and naturally they are judges by its contents.

[yardstick]

> So what has Oberlin really learned?

That their insurance premium will rise only marginally next year.

[yakak]

I would suspect that they learned their premium will rise substantially unless they take a few mitigating actions to not make thislevel of payment a regular reoccurrence. Insurance company as conscience seems like society reaching the anarcho-capatalist rock bottom to me, but there's the "learning".

[alsaaro]

One lesson potentially learned...

Oberlin and its students must comply with local "speech codes" or face being sued into non existence.

And people think "woke" political correctness is bad, at least the snowflakes use speech to counter speech, rather than courts.

[crackercrews]

"local speech codes" = not slandering? Pretty sure that applies everywhere.

[alsaaro]

Who speaks for Oberlin, how can a college slander?

"local speech codes" = whatever offends the sensibilities of small town Ohioans.

[CrazyStat]

> Who speaks for Oberlin,

Employees acting in their official capacities, just like any organization.

> how can a college slander?

Same as any newspaper or corporation can slander. In this case a dean acting in her official capacity (she was at the protest for her job) distributed a libelous flyer.

> "local speech codes" = whatever offends the sensibilities of small town Ohioans.

The appeals were not decided by small town Ohioans.

[the_third_wave]

Seeing how as...

1: speech is the primary weapon of the identity-obsessed ideologues who are behind this whole debacle

2: those same ideologues claim that speech is violence, silence is violence

3: a simple refusal to use a made-up term - the can of worms called pronouns is a good example - can lead to loss of employment, imprisonment (now in Canada and Ireland, possibly elsewhere)

4: the 'speech codes' imposed by these ideologues is a constantly moving target with the above named consequences for violations of those codes

...it is clear that the ideologues in control of Oberlin have fallen on their own sword.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Will they learn anything from this debacle? No, probably not, they'll just chalk it up as another instance of systemic racism by the patriarchy or some such nonsense.

The solution would be to take control away from these ideologues but this is up to whatever institutions hold the reins of this college, the donors, alumni etc. If they do not take action the college will sink deeper and deeper into the bottomless pit of ideological strife where the scientific method and reason are abandoned for ideological zeal.

[pc86]

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.

[etempleton]

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.

[SpelingBeeChamp]

> 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.

I doubt that distinction protects the funds from a judgment creditor. The endowment money belongs to the university. Even though the university can only spend it in a certain way, that is an internal matter between the university and its donors. If the university did not have other funds from which to pay the judgment, I doubt the endowment money is protected just because it wasn't earmarked for "in case you lose a lawsuit."

[skissane]

> Even though the university can only spend it in a certain way, that is an internal matter between the university and its donors.

An earmarked donation may legally constitute a trust. If an asset forms part of a trust, the university can only spend it in accordance with the terms of the trust, unless they have permission of a court to vary them (the cy-près doctrine). Creditors generally can’t claim assets held as part of a trust, unless the debt/tort/etc has some direct connection to the trust