A Call to Arms at Oberlin College

A shadowy cabal?

The Oberlin College BOT’s vendetta against Gibson’s Bakery has encouraged an amicus brief campaign that could mislead the appellate court if left standing. Fortunately, the Gibson attorneys have answers to those poorly crafted briefs.

All the amicus briefs filed on behalf of Oberlin College presume a freedom-of-speech issue that does not exist. This is because the students at any university are free to speak their minds as long as they do not resort to libel or slander. An amicus brief is supposed to come from someone acting as a friend of the court and not from a friend of a party to the action. Some of the amicus briefs sound more like plaintiff or defendant briefs than unbiased briefs providing helpful information to the court.

The issue at Oberlin College is that the College officially endorsed student slander by having an officer of the College participate in the protests in her official capacity. Moreover, no announcement was made that the students were speaking for themselves and not for the College. The only issue here is managerial and legal negligence on the part of the College. Introducing bogus freedom of speech issues conveniently distracts attention from the College’s bungling.

There will be no “chilling effect on free speech” as alleged by College President Ambar as long as institutions allow their students to say whatever they like. Any effort by students to falsely attribute their words to the organization without the organization’s consent is not free speech and should be “chilled.”

It seems that the Oberlin College BOT and the preparers of the amicus briefs have used something in the vicinity of 35 attorneys in their current cost-ineffective appeal alone — just to destroy a tiny little bakery. An obscene amount of resources have been expended in the pursuit of this legal snipe hunt, all toward no rational end!

It is unclear how much of the time put in by this army of attorneys was pro bono time. Most attorneys do like to get paid. Yes, JD is aware that Hillary Clinton lost her billing records, but she is arguably an unusual attorney in that regard. JD hopes the court will ask how much money was paid to the preparers of Oberlin’s amicus briefs and who paid them to prepare the briefs.

Did Oberlin College unduly influence these amicus “non-parties” to come forward to argue the college’s case? Were any of the “amicus” briefs prepared “on the clock” of the organization filing the brief? If so, was any on-the-clock time billed to another party and claimed to be pro bono time?

JD urges all believers in intellectual integrity to answer the call to arms and tell Oberlin College how off base its position is.

Copies of the amicus briefs filed in support of Oberlin College and the Gibson responses to those briefs are available below. The red buttons are for the amicus briefs filed on behalf of Oberlin College, and the green buttons are for the Gibson responses.

Note: the buttons below render properly in light mode, but not in dark mode.