Standards of behavior have always varied somewhat between college campuses and the “real world” communities surrounding them. In colonial America, students attending the nine colleges often studied for the ministry, and the campus ethos probably did not vary dramatically from that of the surrounding communities. Those variations, however, have grown sharply since, and can prove costly to those colleges (all of them) reliant on the real world for resources but contemptuous of its standards. This was demonstrated recently at Oberlin College, historically one of the nation’s foremost liberal arts schools, one whose progressive campus environment has grown more conspicuous over time, to, in my opinion, its increasing detriment.
The Oberlin community would do well to remember the admonition of the great English poet John Donne, who in his Meditation 17 nearly four centuries ago (1623) wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” Probably Oberlin students don’t read Donne anymore; he is a long-dead white Christian male, no doubt viewed as sexist and insufficiently multicultural. Still, Donne’s commentary about human life applies here: colleges and universities are not islands, but “pieces of a continent,” supplicants in the Real World.
Recently, a Lorain County Ohio jury found Oberlin College guilty of libel against a local bakery (Gibson’s) and awarded it $11 million in compensatory damages–and later added $33 million in punitive damages (almost certainly to be ultimately reduced). Indisputably, a black underage Oberlin student with a fake ID tried to buy alcohol and also shoplift two bottles of wine, was caught by a store employee, and the employee was attacked by the shoplifter and two other students. The students all ultimately pleaded guilty and were sanctioned by the Lorain County Court of Common Pleas. But students and administrators of the college were nonetheless outraged, conducting protests and accusing Gibson’s of racist behavior. Literature distributed at one of the protests said, “This is a racist establishment with a long account of racial profiling and discrimination.” The Student Senate pontificated that “Gibson’s…has made their lack of respect for community members of color strikingly visible.” The college’s lucrative contract with the store for baked goods was suspended for a period. Yet the guilty shoplifter admitted, “I believe the employee of Gibson’s actions were not racially motivated.”
Bottom line: there was no evidence of racial discrimination whatsoever in the jury’s opinion. When the suit came before a jury of Lorain County peers presumably all unrelated to Oberlin, they agreed Oberlin had damaged the bakery and acted accordingly. Oberlin will no doubt appeal.
The school has a history of many controversial and bizarre incidents. A few years ago, for example, students protested against “cultural misappropriation,” because the college sold ethnic foods (like General Tso’s chicken) that were not authentic in the country that they allegedly came from. And zeal for the Palestinian cause has led to some rather well documented anti-Semitic behavior on more than one occasion. No doubt in reaction to all of this, Oberlin took an enrollment hit in 2017, creating a multimillion-dollar budget deficit. It may weather this storm–Oberlin is a prestigious, moderately wealthy school, but it is risking its reputation and financial strength by supporting behavior contemptuous of the rule of law.
Being highly selective, Oberlin can limit the damage to its finances by simply lowering its admissions standards some. But that did not apply at the University of Missouri or Evergreen State College, both marred by protests seemingly disconnected from reality as perceived in the real world from which students come. At Mizzou, a complaint by a black student leader about a hostile campus environment led to increasingly violent protests ultimately leading to the resignations of top university officials, and a subsequent sharp decline in enrollment, forcing large budget cuts. At Evergreen, a school with a reputation even more far left than Oberlin, one campus protest involved effectively banning white persons from the campus for a period. Evergreen similarly suffered a big budget hit–do parents, even progressive ones, want their kids going to schools wracked by constant protests and bizarre behavior not acceptable in the broader community?
My latest book, from the Independent Institute, is Restoring the Promise: Higher Education in America.
