One fed-up business owner is taking the political correctness cult head-on, sending “triggered” college students running for their safe spaces.
Allyn Gibson of Gibson’s Bakery in Oberlin, Ohio, filed a lawsuit last month against Oberlin College over the school’s alleged support of ongoing boycotts against his establishment, Associated Press reports.
Gibson’s shop was once highly visited by the Oberlin’s largely left-wing population of students. He also enjoyed a decades-long business relationship selling baked goods to the school.
That changed last year, however, when Gibson caught three black Oberlin students trying to steal bottles of wine. Police arrived and arrested the youth for attempted theft, as well as for punching and kicking Gibson.
The next day, hundreds of students showed up outside Gibson’s Bakery to protest the case of racial “profiling.” Oberlin’s student senate even published a resolution accusing Gibson of having “a history of racial profiling and discriminatory treatment.”
Boycotts have continued even though the three arrested students pleaded guilty in August to theft and aggravated trespassing and also issued plea statements that said Gibson is not a racist.
Asked to give evidence of Gibson’s alleged racism, Kameron Dunbar, vice chair of Oberlin’s student senate, maintained that “racism can’t always be proven on an Excel sheet.”
Retired Oberlin professor Roger Copeland dismissed the accusations of racism. “I’ve never seen evidence; it’s always hearsay,” he asserted. “When your fellow student is shutting down a conversation because he or she is made uncomfortable, it leads to a hive mentality.”
Copeland also criticized the damage Oberlin’s students have done to Gibson’s Bakery.
“I can understand why people were looking for some outlet for their frustration, but it’s just counterproductive to bend that anger towards a small family business that to my knowledge is not guilty of the sort of racial profiling that people accuse it of.”
Conservatives from out of town have rallied to support the bakery, but Gibson said it has not been enough to make up for the lost clientele and business arrangement with the school.
The threat to his livelihood prompted Gibson to take legal action against the college.
“I have not taken a paycheck since this happened more than a year ago,” Gibson said. “Sometimes you have to stand up to a large institution. Powerful institutions — including Oberlin College — and their members must follow the same laws as the rest of us.”
Gibson pointed to police figures that indicate only six out of 40 adults arrested for shoplifting at his bakery were black.
His lawsuit targets both the school and vice president, Meredith Raimondo for slander. According to Gibson, Raimondo took part in a demonstration against the bakery, using a bullhorn and handing out copies of a flyer calling Gibson’s a “RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION.”
The small business owner’s suit against the college is a David and Goliath fight for common sense over political correctness.
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