Hacker News Reader

Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand what's interesting about this story. They won an enormous judgement (I think understandably --- that they were clearly in the right in this case, and they were wronged by a wealthy organization). They judgement was appealed. The appeal failed. Oberlin is going to pay. The courts will force them to pay. Seems simple. Bari Weiss knows the answer to the question posed by the headline; she could have just, you know, added the sentence "Yes."

View on HN

I wasn't familiar with Oberlin before reading this story, but I found it nonetheless interesting as an example of how your life can be turned around quickly.

I don't doubt that modern day businesses make decisions based on whether it can lead to a social media-powered mob forming against them. Stories like these help understand why and give some details about what the worst case scenario might look like.

Bari Weiss is well aware the money is coming soon because there’s no way to appeal any more. What she needed was an example of “wokeness gone mad”, so her readers can confirm whatever biases they hold. They pay her $5/month for that and boy does she deliver.

I'm glad Weiss is brave enough to do this, TBH. I don't think all the causes she promotes are great, but I appreciate that she has been willing to give up her previous career to avoid being complicit.

Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.

Seeing how as Weiss was forced out of her position at the NYT [1] by 'woke progressives' she has made it her goal to expose the destructive effects this ideology has with the clear intent of putting a stop to it.

Those who attempt to gain power and influence by denouncing others for thoughtcrime [2] shall be exposed and denounced themselves. The sooner this happens, the better it is for everyone involved.

[1] https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter

[2] https://bookanalysis.com/1984/thoughtcrime/

Read The Atlantic on this, too. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/the-public...

The story is the extent of personal responsibility for race baiting by the administration amounts to having to jump ship & the cost to the students for supporting the SJW kowtowing is in the 10s of millions.

There's nothing new about that story; it was extensively discussed on HN at the time of the verdict. The article misleadingly suggests further wrongdoing by Oberlin, which is grossly false. Oberlin is appealing, as is their right, and losing, as is fair.

Oberlin already lost their appeal at the Supreme Court Level no?

Oberlin lost their Ohio Supreme Court appeal yesterday (or at least they rejected to hear the case).

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/08/ohio-supreme-court-re...

They will need to pay...but the wheels of justice turn very slowly for this business/family.

The wheels of justice turn slowly for everybody. If the headline for this story was "$36MM defamation judgement takes years to appeal", nobody would click.

the fact that the payment has been delayed and the judgement has been appealed this long is one of the least interesting parts of the story… imo.

(and yes, every story has different perspectives, and i don’t claim to have the facts at hand to weigh in at all..)

It's the only part of this story. The rest of it was widely reported, and heavily discussed on HN at the time.

i don’t read /every/ story posted or even heavily discussed on hn, and i doubt most people do either..

Sounds like Ohio government will have to step in and threaten to revoke their status as an institution for not paying.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com