Saturday roundup

A culture-war skirmish that turned out right:

Oberlin College in Ohio may be one of the most egregious politically correct campuses in the nation. Back in 2013, the campus closed down for a day of “racial sensitivity training” despite the fact that the administration knew that the supposed “racial incident” that prompted this “crisis” (someone spotted wearing Klan robes on campus) was a hoax.

Then in 2016, Black Lives Matter and a number of super-woke Oberlin students launched protests and a boycott against Gibson’s Bakery, a family-owned and run establishment that has been a fixture of downtown Oberlin since 1885. What prompted this? Gibson’s had the temerity to apprehend and charge three students with shoplifting (they later pled guilty), but because of the race of the offenders, the Oberlin College wokerati accused Gibson’s with racism, racial profiling, and probably genocide for all I know.

The Oberlin student Senate passed a resolution charging Gibson’s with “a long history of racial profiling,” and the Oberlin dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, endorsed and distributed the flyer. The college also discontinued purchasing baked goods from Gibsons, because you just can’t take the chance that you’ll cause literal pain or mental anguish to Oberlin students by procuring a bag of racist bear claws for the faculty lounge.

Gibson’s decided not to take this politically-motivated harassment lying down. They filed a  libel and slander suit against Oberlin College, and yesterday a jury found for Gibson’s, ordering Oberlin to pay $11 million in compensatory damages. A punitive damages hearing will follow, so the total award could grow to over $30 million.

William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection has a complete account of the background of the case and the legal drama that has played out. A news account quotes Jacobson: “The students eventually pleaded guilty, but not before large protests and boycotts intended to destroy the bakery and defame the owners. The jury appears to have accepted that Oberlin College facilitated the wrongful conduct against the bakery.”

And here's another one. Take your $21.5 million and stuff it, Culverhouse:

The University of Alabama's board of trustees has voted to return a $21.5 million gift from Hugh Culverhouse Jr. — the school's biggest donor — and take his name off its law school. The move comes after Culverhouse urged businesses and prospective students to boycott the university and the state over Alabama's new abortion law.

The school says the transaction to return the funds was processed Friday morning and that it will also return any accrued interest. Last fall, Culverhouse pledged to donate a total of $26.5 million over four years.

"The action taken by the Board today was a direct result of Mr. Culverhouse's ongoing attempts to interfere in the operations of the Law School," the university's vice chancellor for communication, Kellee Reinhart, said Friday. "That was the only reason the Board voted to remove his name and return his money."

Culverhouse issued a statement Friday in which he renewed his call for students "to protest and reconsider their educational options in Alabama."

Pardes Seleh gets video of a standoff at the Dyke March between the main group, which is excluding any Stars of David, Israeli flags or other symbols of Judaism, and a group displaying those very things. The spokesdyke for the exclusionary group explains her bunch's position in a too-nice-nice way, dripping with sanctimony. She's determined to be all peace, love, tofu and sprouts, even though we all know she can't stand the sight of the other bunch. And there's just something about the way she  enunciates the word "dyke." And is "dyke" some special category of female homosexuality? I'm assuming it is, and that I'm hopelessly behind the curve.

Great Alexandra deSanctis piece at National Review entitled "Joe Biden Never Was Pro-Life." Along with tracing his public support for the Hyde Amendment until about 48 hours ago, going back to voting on its passage in 1976, she reminds us of such Biden moves as voting against Robert Bork's SCOTUS nomination (a move similar to his latest, in that he originally supported Bork). That seat, of course, went to Kennedy, who "went on to affirm Roe v. Wade in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, authoring the constitutionally illiterate decision that upheld the Court-imposed regime of abortion-on-demand."

And speaking of the procedure whereby the brains are vacuumed out of the skulls of people who aren't born yet, here's a HuffPost piece that may be the wackiest thing you'll read this decade. (I can say that, because this decade's nearly over. As to how soon after that you'll read something wackier, I wouldn't be willing to bet.) It's entitled "Women Aren't the Only People Who Get Abortions." A taste:

Even the most progressive health organizations, like Planned Parenthood, are still not up to speed on some of the most rudimental ways to give competent and compassionate care to trans and nonbinary folks. 

“Even the pro-choice people are constantly, constantly choosing to ignore my existence,” Gutiérrez said. 

Dr. Krystal Redman, executive director of southeastern nonprofit SPARK: Reproductive Justice Now, pointed to the fact that, historically, legislation in the U.S. has been created by cisgender white people. And that, she argued, creates a systemic “narrative of gender being binary.” 

“Just based on the history of how these laws were created, naturally the narrative and the conversations behind it become this cis-het [cisgender, heteronormative] centered narrative,” said Redman, a cisgender woman.

The language of choice was specifically created by cisgender people for cisgender people, Redman explained. Instead of the question being “Are you male or female?″ or “Do you have insurance or are you uninsured?”, the question for most nonbinary and gender-nonconforming folks is, “What provider can I go to that truly understands the dynamics of my body?”

“Cis folks need to understand that they operate within a privilege,” Redman said. “I don’t care what other racial or ethnic identity you identify with but just by the premise of being cis-identified, there is so much more privilege that you have over folks who do not identify as cis.”

Fewer post-Americans are moving - near or far - than at any time since 1948.  Discuss among yourselves.