CLEVELAND -- All you really need to know about Oberlin College is encompassed in the introduction to 50 demands covered in 14 pages that were sent to the school’s board and president by a group of black students in late 2015.

Replete with the “isms” of liberalspeak, the document called the institution unethical, saying it “functions on the premises of imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism, ableism, and a cissexist heteropatriarchy,” and demanded such things as hirings, firings, promotions, renamed buildings, black-only “safe spaces,” and a wide variety of increased financial commitments from the school, including an $8.20-per-hour stipend to be paid to black leaders for their time spent in campus activism.

"These are not polite requests, but concrete and unmalleable demands,” the students wrote, threatening “a full and forceful response” if the demands were not met (which they were not, as then-president Marvin Krislov declined to take them seriously).

The document was signed by more than 700 students.

This at a place that is already a bastion of left-wing ideology and safe spaces – where the official sexual misconduct policy totals 65 pages.

So it should not have surprised anyone when, a year later, the campus exploded in righteous fury after a local shopkeeper tried to stop a student from shoplifting.

What is surprising was what happened afterward, when a jury finally put up a stop sign in front of the immature and entitled leftists who inhabit one of Ohio’s most expensive colleges.

You are likely familiar with the well-publicized specifics: A 19-year-old student tried to buy some wine with a fake ID in Gibson’s Bakery, an Oberlin fixture for more than 130 years, and was turned away by the shopkeeper. As the student tried to leave, the shopkeeper noticed a couple of bottles stashed under the young man’s shirt, and tried to stop him, pursuing him outside the store. When police arrived, the shopkeeper was on the ground, being punched and kicked by the thief and two friends.

The students were black. The shopkeeper was white. So, naturally, this had to be a case of racial profiling, and the Oberlin students hit the streets, spiraling a simple case of shoplifting into a national story.

Protesters massed in front of the store, accusing the store’s owners of racism and urging a boycott in an attempt to put Gibson’s out of business. Some of the college administrators encouraged the students’ efforts by offering support and advice, allowing them to print their signs on college equipment, providing pizza and gloves for the protesters, and suspending purchases from the bakery.

All this despite the fact that there was never much question about the facts of the case – all three students admitted their guilt in court."

Gibson’s, already hard-hit financially from the more than 1,000 items owners say had been shoplifted during the previous year, and in danger of going under because of the boycott, sued the college for libel, defamation and a number of other charges. Earlier this month, a jury took note of the outrageous attack against Gibson’s by the college and its students, and awarded the bakery $11 million in compensatory damages – later tacking on another $33 million in punitive damages (likely to be reduced to $22 million per an Ohio law that limits punitive damages).

Whether or not the award holds up under appeal, that jury has provided a teaching moment for every student (and administrator) at the college: Fairness counts, and actions have consequences.

Before we turn to other matters, however, it is also instructive to consider how this incident was approached by a couple of the nation’s high-profile newspapers – news sources whose objectivity we need to evaluate as we sort through the reporting that will help us decide what direction the country should go over the next 17 months.

The Washington Post, in its featured Morning Mix, led off this way:

“On Nov. 9, 2016, the day after Donald Trump clinched the presidency, a student at Oberlin College went to a local bakery and convenience store, hoping to leave with a few bottles of wine ... instead (he) ran from the store, chased by an employee.”

The ensuing events, the story said, became “a proxy war in a larger fight over free speech, racial sensitivity and town-gown relations.”

Nine paragraphs into the story, with the angst over Trump’s election, the price tag for free speech, accusations of racism, and the sensitivity of Oberlin students firmly established, we finally find out that, well, the student was hoping to “leave” without actually paying for the wine, the shopkeeper was trying to protect his property, and as a result the protesters tried to put his place out of business.

Over at The New York Times, the shopkeeper had the thief in a chokehold and his friends “intervened” (no mention of what police found when they got there), and the issue was grave concern over free speech.

In the story, prominent First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams termed the jury award “a double-barreled threat to free speech on campus,” and Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, was quoted as saying that Oberlin was merely doing what President Donald Trump recently mandated – “protecting the First Amendment rights of their students.”

While it is heartening to see that the Times is finally getting on board with the right to free expression on the nation’s campuses after years of unconcern while conservative speakers have been disinvited, assaulted and shouted down, it’s unfortunate that the cause they chose is the mob bullying of a shopkeeper trying to protect his property.

There are a lot of ways to tell a news story, but only one good way to read one: with skepticism and the knowledge of what bias the news source brings to the telling.

Ted Diadiun is a member of the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

To reach Ted Diadiun: tdiadiun@cleveland.com

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