[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.