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What Does the Oberlin College Case Mean for Social Justice?
“In this country, truth should still matter,” said an attorney for the Gibson family after an appeals court upheld a $44 million dollar judgement against Oberlin College.
The incident which occurred one fateful November day in 2016 in Oberlin, Ohio, will live in infamy as the day fortunes changed- perhaps forever- at Oberlin College.
What happened was common enough. An Oberlin college student was observed by an employee of a local bakery trying to buy wine from the store using a fake ID.
The employee tried to stop the youth, who tried to flee with alcohol, two other college students tried to intervene to prevent their friend from being apprehended, a scuffle ensued, no one was seriously hurt, the police were called and the students in question were charged with shoplifting, a relatively minor crime for which they eventually would plead guilty.
After that, things went decidedly south. A minor shoplifting incident which happens thousands of times every day in America became an incident which would eventually tear apart the college and the community around it.
Whatever the overarching, larger moral implications for society in this story- whether or not shoplifting is a serious crime, what efforts should be made to prevent those under 21 from…