Oberlin College Administrator Testifes That Oberlin Is Worse Than a Nursery School

Legal Insurrection took a victory lap this weekend, tweeting out excerpts from their daily coverage of the Oberlin defamation trial.

Some choice cuts below:

First: Oberlin adminstrator says that the school had to be cautious about contradicting student shouting about racism, otherwise they'd throw their food on the floor in the cafeteria.

He admits that is sub-nursery school behavior.

Meredith Raimondo claimed that her actions consisted of trying to calm down students and, to the extent she was involved at all, she was only trying to safeguard their rights to free speech.

Testimony from witnesses say that she was a ringleader of the defamatory protests and pulled the Melissa Click "We need muscle over here" type move of trying to keep journalists from photographing participants in the lynching.

Oh, and they say she handed out the defamatory flyers.

A former head of security of Oberlin, Rick McDaniel, offered this stunning testimony: that a college official threatened to key his car if he didn't stop taking pictures.

McDaniel also went downtown when he heard the protests had started. He said when he got to the small downtown he noticed a large group of students, which he described as "Anger. Noise, Venom ... [students] very angry and disturbed and irate and they wanted to take it out on somebody."

McDaniel said he started taking pictures with his cell phone, and a young man came up to him and started blocking his phone with flyers in his hand. McDaniel said he kept moving and the man moved with him, blocking his ability to take picture over and over. "I'm with the college," the man answered when the former Oberlin College police chief asked him why he was blocking his ability to take pictures.

McDaniel testified he found out later the man hounding him over picture taking was Julio Reyes, associate director of the school's multi-resource center. "He was attempting to intimidate me and I don’t intimidate easily," McDaniel said.

McDaniel testified he found out later the man hounding him over picture taking was Julio Reyes, associate director of the school's multi-resource center. "He was attempting to intimidate me and I don't intimidate easily," McDaniel said.

"I told him 'I'm going to just going to wait until your silly ass leaves and [I'll] start taking pictures again without you trying to block me,.'" McDaniel testified. He answered that he was going to come back when I wasn't looking and key my car."

Remember, Oberlin College was just a spectator in this. They were just trying to de-escalate the situation. Swearsies.

Here, Meredith Raimondo admitted that she had no idea if it was true or false that Gibson's had a history of racial profiling:

Tim Pool pointed out that these answers satisfied the "malice" standard for defamation -- Raimondo admitted she did not know if the claims were true or false, but, per the other testimony from reporters and cops noted above, made them anyway.

"Unleash the students," Meredith Raimondo said she'd do if she weren't convinced Oberlin needed to bury this.

In one email, Ben Jones, the vice president of communications for the school wrote to his co-executives in the school administration that, "I love how these Gibson supporters accuse us of making rash assumption decisions, but are totally blind to their own assumptions ... all these idiots complain about the college."

He closed with, "Fuck-em... they've made their own bed now."

When Roger Copeland, an Oberlin College professor of theater and dance (he is "emeritus" status now) wrote a letter to the campus newspaper soon after the protests ended, and criticized how the school was treating Gibson's in the letter, Jones sent a text message in caps saying, "FUCK ROGER COPELAND."

"Fuck him," Raimondo responded in a message. "I'd say unleash the students if I wasn't convinced this needs to be put behind us."

Raimondo was given these examples and others and then asked a very simple question. "When personal beliefs get involved in decision making, does that have an effect on trying to maintain professional responsibility?" asked plaintiffs' attorney Lee Plakas. She was asked specifically about herself and the higher-ups in the Oberlin College administration.

Her answer was quite surprising.

"Their position is to not have a position," she said.

Jurors were seen visibly shaking their heads at this very-lawyered non-answer, Legal Insurrection reported.

posted by Ace of Spades at 03:25 PM

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