Gibson’s V. Oberlin: How An Elite Woke College Nearly Destroyed A Family-Owned Bakery

Gibson’s Bakery has been a staple of the city of Oberlin, Ohio, since 1885. A family-owned small business, the bakery serves the city’s population of more than 8,000 residents, half of whom either attend or work for nearby Oberlin College, a small and highly selective liberal arts college.

For decades, Oberlin and Gibson’s lived in harmony, with the college contracting the bakery to provide goods and services for students while those who attended and worked at the school frequented the small business.

That all changed on November 9, 2016, when three underage black Oberlin students — Jonathan Aladin, Endia Lawrence, and Cecelia Whettstone — entered Gibson’s Bakery and attempted to purchase a bottle of wine with a fake I.D. Aladin presented the fake I.D., and Allyn D. Gibson, a descendent of the owners who was clerking at the store that day, noticed he had two more bottles of wine hidden in his jacket, according to a police report.

Allyn told Aladin he was calling the police and took out his phone to take a picture of the student, who slapped it away, striking Allyn in the face. Aladin and his accomplices ran from the store and Allyn pursued after Aladin assaulted Allyn’s father. Allyn held onto Aladin outside the store, and when police arrived, they found the three students attacking Allyn as he lay on the ground.

The three students were arrested and charged with assault, while Aladin was also charged with robbery.

Nearly a year later, the three students pleaded guilty to their crimes, and read statements that said: “I believe the employees of Gibson’s actions were not racially motivated. They were merely trying to prevent an underage sale.”

But in the days following the shoplifting incident, students — aided by Oberlin faculty and administrators — heavily protested the bakery and accused it of having a long history of racism. The Oberlin Student Senate also passed a resolution falsely claiming Gibson’s “has a history of racial profiling and discriminatory treatment of students and residents alike” and telling students they should “immediately cease all support, financial and otherwise, of Gibson’s.” This resolution was emailed to every student and publicly displayed at the school’s student center for the next year.

For the two months after its students attempted to shoplift a local business, Oberlin suspended its purchasing agreement with Gibson’s, claiming this was done to de-escalate the situation. Oberlin said the bakery was to blame for the situation, claiming in a statement after Gibson’s sued that “Gibson bakery’s archaic chase-and-detain policy regarding suspected shoplifters was the catalyst for the protests …. The guilt or innocence of the students is irrelevant to both the root cause of the protests and this litigation.”

It is important to remember the shoplifting incident at Gibson’s Bakery wasn’t the only thing going on in November 2016. Just one day before Oberlin students attempted to steal the wine, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, an election that angered liberals across the country and spurred protests and riots. It was under this backdrop that the protests against the bakery occurred, with many believing the protests had more to do with the election than any minor incident in town.

Oberlin president Marvin Krislov admitted as much in an email to students following the protests, writing: “This has been a difficult few days for our community, not simply because of the events at Gibson’s Bakery, but because of the fears and concerns that many are feeling in response to the outcome of the presidential election. We write foremost to acknowledge the pain and sadness that many of you are experiencing.”

Oberlin was also dealing with a lack of enrollment at the time of the election and protests, making administrators nervous about going against the students’ outrage. A former Oberlin administrator told the now-defunct Weekly Standard, “A freshman from an east coast big city might come to Oberlin and find there is little for a social justice warrior to do in a small town like this, so they get frustrated. And make issues like this shoplifting thing bigger than it should be, and the school follows along.”

In the aftermath of the protests, Oberlin officials met with members of the Gibson family to discuss moving forward. Oberlin, according to the Gibsons’ civil complaint, said they would reinstate its contracts with the bakery if the Gibsons agreed to not bring criminal charges against first-time shoplifters.

In the five years before this particular incident, 40 adults had been arrested for shoplifting from Gibson’s Bakery, according to an Oberlin Police Department investigation. Of those 40 arrested, just six were black, and 33 were college students. The Gibsons said they lost thousands of dollars a year to shoplifters. A nearby store owner also told a student publication that she lost about $10,000 a year to shoplifters.

So, an agreement not to prosecute first-time shoplifters was never an option for the bakery.

In November 2017, one year after the shoplifting incident, Gibson’s Bakery filed a civil complaint against Oberlin, accusing the school of libel, slander, and breaking its contracts with the business.

The case went to trial nearly two years later, and the extent of Oberlin’s involvement in the protests was revealed before a jury. Oberlin maintained that its faculty and administrators tried to calm down the protesting students, but multiple people testified that this was untrue. A former Oberlin security director, Rick McDaniel, also testified that he went to the protest and tried to take pictures, but was stopped by someone whom he later identified as Julio Reyes, who was the college’s associate director of the school’s multi-resource center.

Clarence “Trey” James, an African American employee of Gibson’s, said that dean of students Meredith Raimondo (who was named as a defendant in the Gibson’s lawsuit) was “orchestrating” some of the protests.

“[She was] standing directly in front of the store with a megaphone, orchestrating some of the activities of the students,” James testified. “It appeared she was the voice of authority. She was telling the kids what to do, where to go. Where to get water, use the restrooms, where to make copies.”

A city policeman who was maintaining order at the protests, Officer Victor Ortiz, testified that he “didn’t see anyone trying to calm the students down at all.” He described a protest where “people were getting flyers shoved in their faces saying Gibson’s were racist, curse words were chanted, and they chanted how this business was racist too.”

Ortiz said he didn’t see any administrators “instructing the students not to use curse words and didn’t hear any of them tell their students not to shout that Gibson’s is racist.”

It was also revealed at trial that two employees at Oberlin’s music conservatory offices told students they could use their conference room and printers to make copies of the flyers calling Gibson’s Bakery racist. Students were also allowed to use the office’s restrooms and were able to eat pizza purchased for them by the school.

Local reporter Jason Hawk, who edited the Oberlin News Tribune, said that Raimondo repeatedly blocked him from trying to take photos of the protest and handed him a flyer that claimed, “This is a RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION.”

Local police records, however, showed the bakery had never received an accusation of racial profiling prior to the Oberlin protests, and several black employees of the bakery testified that there had never been a hint of racism from the bakery or its owners.

People in the community had also disputed the allegations of racism against the bakery. When Emily Crawford, an Oberlin employee, emailed her bosses to say she had spoken “to 15 townie friends who are poc [persons of color] and they’re disgusted and embarrassed by the protest,” she was met with disdain. Tita Reed, a special assistant to Oberlin’s president, responded to Crawford’s concerns by saying, “Doesn’t change a damned thing for me,” according to a copy of the emails obtained by The Daily Wire.

Similarly, when the three shoplifters said in court that race had nothing to do with their arrests, assistant dean of students Antoinette Myers sent Raimondo a text message that read, “I hope we rain fire and brimstone on that store.”

Ultimately, the evidence was overwhelming for the jury, who awarded the Gibson family $11 million in compensatory damages and an additional $33 million in punitive damages, for a total of $44 million dollars. That number was later revised down to $36 million due to state caps on punitive damages.

“All it would have taken was a retraction,” Gibson family attorney Owen Rarric told The Daily Wire. “Allyn Gibson asked for a retraction and Oberlin refused to provide one.”

Thus began a years-long appeals process, with Oberlin trying and failing to get the verdict thrown out. The case ultimately went to the Ohio Supreme Court, who declined to hear it, thereby forcing Oberlin to pay the Gibsons the money they owed.

Finally, on September 8, 2022, nearly six years after the Gibson’s ordeal began, Oberlin announced it had initiated payment to the bakery.

“Oberlin College and Conservatory has initiated payment in full of the $36.59 million judgment in the Gibson’s Bakery case and is awaiting payment information from the plaintiffs. This amount represents awarded damages and accumulated interest, and therefore no further payments are required,” the school said in a press release.

The college, which costs around $35,000 a year to attend and has a nearly $1 billion endowment, also bragged that the damages were merely a drop in the bucket for the school.

“The size of this verdict is significant. However, our careful financial planning, which includes insurance coverage, means that we can satisfy our legal obligation without impacting our academic and student experience,” the college’s press release said.

That money, the Gibson’s attorney Brandon McHugh told The Daily Wire, has been transferred into an account and lawyers are working on dispersing the funds.

As for what the bakery will do with the money, Lorna Gibson, whose husband David died after the trial but before Oberlin had exhausted all of its appeals, told The Daily Wire that she has no plans to shut down or move the store.

“This store has been here for over 137 years and is a stable part of this community,” Lorna said, adding she has no plans to move the store or shut it down and live off of the money. “My husband gave his life for this store and I’m not about to let it go down.”

Lorna told The Daily Wire that because the money has not been dispersed yet, the store is still struggling. She said the “shelves are pretty much empty” and they are down to just three employees. Students and faculty at Oberlin still avoid the store, and the family detailed the extent of the college’s continued campaign against the bakery in one of their earlier court filings.

“The continuing conduct of which the Gibsons have become aware and which has brought the Gibsons to their knees include the following: Oberlin College’s authorized new student tour guides are still being heard to say don’t shop at Gibsons Bakery when the tours pass in front of the store; neither the College, its administrators, nor its professors have resumed any ordering of the Gibson’s products for College events; and notices still denigrating the Gibsons are posted in College buildings for students and their families to see,” the Gibsons wrote in a motion before Oberlin was forced to pay the damages it owed the family.

But while Oberlin students and employees continue to snub the bakery, Lorna said that alumni and people from the community and around the country have been helping the business survive, while also expressing disappointment in how Oberlin handled the situation.

“We have received amazing and overwhelming support,” Lorna said, but noted that no current students or faculty have reached out to apologize or offer support.

“It’s been tough,” Lorna said. “Real, real hard. My husband loved his job. He was in the candy store just five days before he died. My father-in-law also loved the store and everyone who walked by would sit down and talk to him. But after everything happened with Oberlin, he would sit out front and no one would talk to him. It was heartbreaking.”

Still, Lorna said she was holding out hope that someday, her family could reconcile with Oberlin and reinstate the broken contracts.

“I think we can get back on track,” Lorna told The Daily Wire.