Justice is served.

Rarely have I been as enthused about the outcome of a civil trial as I was last week when Oberlin College was ordered to pay a massive settlement to a small bakery adjacent to the campus.

This is the ultimate example of modern-day bullying, and the bullies paid the price. Hallelujah.

The price was the largest in a defamation case in Ohio history: $11 million in compensatory damages and $33 million (almost certain to be reduced) in punitive damages.

The case has turned into a national story. But if you're not familiar with it, here's the Reader's Digest version.

Nov. 9, 2016. An Oberlin student walks into a family bakery that has had close ties to the college for more than a century. Like many bakeries, the shop carries more than baked goods. It also carries wine.

The 19-year-old student wants some wine, but he doesn't particularly want to pay for it. So he buys one bottle — using a fake ID — and stuffs two other bottles into his clothes.

A member of the Gibson family working in the store takes note of the thievery, chases the “customer” out the door and eventually gets him in a choke hold. Two of the thief's buddies come to his defense. When police arrive, the storekeeper is on his back, being punched and kicked by all three students.

The thief is charged with robbery and the other two with assault.

The incident probably would have been relegated to three paragraphs in the local newspaper's police report, except for this: The shopkeeper is white. The thief and his friends are black.

It quickly blossomed into a cause célèbre.

Oberlin College is known far and wide for two things: It is a bastion of musical excellence and a bastion of extreme liberal activism.

The college swung into action. Not just the students; the administration, too.

The problem — to them — was obvious: blatant racism.

Boycott. Picket. Spread the word via email and social media.

Nobody expects a college or university to be responsible for the actions of all of its students. But the administration was every bit as guilty. Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo took an active role, actually handing out flyers in front of the bakery that read, “This is a RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION.”

To the contrary. Owner Allyn W. “Grandpa” Gibson was known throughout the community as a lifelong advocate of equal rights who bent over backward to help minorities. There's no way a business run by racists would thrive for more than a century when its biggest customer is an ultra-liberal institution, the first interracial and gender-mixed college in America.

Gibson's had sold pastries and bagels to the campus for as long as anyone can remember. But the college administration boycotted the bakery immediately after the incident.

When police checked incident reports at Gibson's for the previous five years, they discovered that 40 adults had been arrested for shoplifting — and all but six were white. So much for profiling.

Most of all, there's this: When the three students pleaded guilty in August 2017, they read sworn statements saying the incident had nothing to do with racism and that the shopkeeper was justified in physically confronting the robber (a legitimate act under Ohio law).

The college's main defense was that the students were just exercising their right to free speech. Sure. And they should be able to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, too.

The Gibson family's lead attorney, Lee Plakas, who has an office in the Huntington Tower in downtown Akron, says his firm and another put eight lawyers on the case and ran up about $5 million in time because they viewed the outcome as enormously important to society in general. But their legal effort fell short of the 11 attorneys hired by Oberlin, including many from the powerhouse Taft firm, who were attempting to defend the indefensible.

If you don't know much about the town of Oberlin, you probably don't realize how much the college dominates the region. In a town of 8,300, the school has about 2,800 students and 1,000 employees.

University of Akron prof Deborah Owens was called by the plaintiffs to explain to the jury the concept of an “opinion leader,” a force so strong that it can become an intellectual bully. Disagree with the college's stance and you're shunned. No surprise that Gibson's sales plummeted.

Throughout a 50-minute phone interview, attorney Plakas' passion for the case was evident. But he almost broke down when asked about the impact the false allegations had on the Gibson family, especially the eldest Gibson.

“Grandpa Gibson, now in his 90s, is the antithesis of a racist,” Plakas says. “He said to his son, Dave, 'I've lived my entire life doing the right things. I've lived my entire life supporting equal rights. I've lived my entire life trying to help minorities. But now I'm in my 90s and my tombstone will say, figuratively, 'Here lies a racist.'

“ 'At my age, there's nothing I can do. There isn't enough time to revise that.' ”

The incident took a huge toll on the entire family, including co-owner Dave, a fourth-generation baker, and Allyn D., the fifth generation and the one who grabbed the robber.

“Recklessly aimed words can be as destructive as recklessly aimed bullets,” Plakas says. “And in one sense, it's worse, because there is no surgical repair or treatment for reputational damage.

“What happened to the Gibsons should not happen to anyone. But it could quickly happen to anyone when truth no longer matters in this internet age.”

Plakas believes part of the college's motivation was to solidify its national reputation as a liberal enclave. He mentions the school's propensity to identify its students as “customers," and notes the adage that “the customer is always right.” Even when he isn't.

Oberlin administrators should have acted like "the adult in the room," Plakas says, rather than actively helping students dive into whatever cause came along, regardless of its merit.

The jury reacted strongly to incredible arrogance expressed in emails sent back and forth between top school officials, such as the one in which a college VP wrote, “We should just give all business to the Oberlin IGA. Better donuts anyway. And all these idiots complaining about the college hurting a 'small local business' .... F*** 'em.”

Not exactly a noble quest for truth and justice.

Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com. He also is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bob.dyer.31