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Comment by zcid | Hacker News Reader

Multiple school officials were actively participating in the demonization of the business and using their authority to create economic sanctions on the same. I don't see how you can justify their behavior. Especially since Gibson's was an actual victim of a real crime unlike the narrative the school was trying to paint.

There was also a link to another article laying out the evidence of collusion by school administrators to do economic harm to the owners of the bakery. Do you defend that behavior as well?

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I don't "justify" saying stupid things. I just care about freedom of speech.

There's another user who made the point that the facts of this case extend to a dean accusing the business of committing a criminal act. Based on those facts, I think there's a much better argument that you could be making rather than arguing that defending the right to say something is the same as defending the underlying stupid comment.

Freedom of speech does does carry with it freedom from the repercussions of libel and lost wages due to those erroneous statements. Now, you can argue the validity of those laws and their impact on the freedom of speech, but they aren't protected under the free speech laws. They have very real specifications and aren't cart blanche to be an asshole without repercussion. Ignorance of the law has never been a defence, and I would hope a college would have understood that.

I think you misread what I wrote because the statements aren't in conflict with one another. I'm saying there are limitations on libel as a result of the First Amendment, not that you can't have any libel laws at all.

Of course, but when you use your position of authority (as a professor would have) as a bully pulpit, to have a call to action (like boycott), it can be argued that damages are justified. I'm actually very pro free speech, and I think the damages in this case are egregious, but there was very much a call to action from a very influential person on a group of people who had limited capabilities (though, not legally, maybe). The precedent is more similar to yelling fire in a crowded movie theater and being responsible for the outcome rather than voicing your political opinions in a town square.... Though, I will admit, when I wrote this first comment I hadn't read far enough down in this thread =)

> The precedent is more similar to yelling fire in a crowded movie theater and being responsible for the outcome rather than voicing your political opinions in a town square

A closer precedent would be yelling "this sucks!" in a crowded theater of a film that in fact is quite good and then calling for people to boycott it on that faulty basis. Mostly joking with this example, but it kinda gets to where we disagree too.

Again, you’re missing how exceedingly narrow a defamation claim must be, and how the Oberlin dean threaded the needle tightly to fit into the requirements.

A defamation claim must be premised on a (stated or unstated) false assertion of fact. Pure opinions are not covered: http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/opinion-and-fair-comment-pri.... Whether a movie is good or bad is a pure opinion—it cannot be falsified and cannot be the basis of a defamation claim. Arguably, whether someone is racist is an opinion too, although on the flip side it generally carries the connotation that the conclusion is based on actual conduct and can be considered an assertion about these (unstated) facts.

But whether someone has a “long history of racial profiling,” as the Oberlin dean asserted, is a factual assertion about past events. It’s falsifiable, and was proven false at trial.

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