In 1996, Oberlin College’s on campus security force, then known simply as the “Department of Security ,” was re-branded with a kinder and gentler (if slightly wordier) title : The Office of Security and Safety. Last fall , the same on- campus Keepers -Of -The- Peace underwent yet another verbal makeover, morphing this time into… Continue reading Post #7: Are We Safe Yet?
Author: Roger Copeland
Roger Copeland is a theater, dance and film critic whose essays have been published in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Village Voice, and many other journals. His books include What Is Dance? and Merce Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance. He has also written and directed several films including “The Unrecovered” and “Light As Light.” He taught at Oberlin College for 41 years. But then he published several opinion pieces that were supportive of Gibson's Bakery and critical of Oberlin College. In response to one of those essays , the Dean of Students declared “Fuck him…Unleash the students.” She did and he took early retirement .
Post #6: The End of Adversarial Culture
Last week’s blog post concluded with a recent exchange of e-mails, quoted verbatim, between myself and the current editors of The Oberlin Review. In the course of defending their decision not to publish a short letter I submitted about their latest editorial , “Media Coverage of Gibson’s Verdict Misses The Mark” (June 18, 2019) ,… Continue reading Post #6: The End of Adversarial Culture
Post #5: Circling the Wagons
A few days after the Gibson family filed their lawsuit against the College , The Oberlin Review responded with an editorial that read --in part --as follows : “News of the lawsuit — which is meant to bully and intimidate College students, faculty, and staff — was relayed to the College community almost exactly… Continue reading Post #5: Circling the Wagons
Post #4: False Emergency, Part II: Diagnosing PFAP (Premature First Amendment Panic)
Many years ago, I was writing an essay for a British publication in which I attempted to use the word “crazy” the way people on this side of the Atlantic routinely employ it: as a synonym for “bonkers.” As in “What was she thinking? “Is she crazy? But my British editor saved me from a… Continue reading Post #4: False Emergency, Part II: Diagnosing PFAP (Premature First Amendment Panic)
Post #3: False Emergency
Much to my dismay, Oberlin College appears to be winning the PR battle it’s been waging ever since the Gibson’s verdict was announced. And if there’s one aspect of this campaign which cries out— urgently—for refutation, it’s this : the College’s cynical and jaw droppingly hypocritical --strategy of wrapping itself in the sanctity of… Continue reading Post #3: False Emergency
Post #2: The First Law of Holes
On November 11, 2019 –as the second day of protests against Gibson’s Bakery was about to get underway -–Oberlin’s then President Marvin Krislov and Meredith Raimondo, the College’s Vice President and Dean of Students, issued a joint public statement in which they promised to “commit every resource to determining the full and true narrative, including… Continue reading Post #2: The First Law of Holes
Coming soon: 5 Outrageous Things About This Controversy That You Won’t Learn Anywhere Else
Coming Soon. Preview: A story about the college's student newspaper The Oberlin Review , which published attacks on Gibson’s bakery without bothering to inform its readers that one of its editors-in-chief had herself been arrested for shoplifting at Gibson's. Conflict of interest? You be the judge .A story about a tenured faculty member in Oberlin's Conservatory… Continue reading Coming soon: 5 Outrageous Things About This Controversy That You Won’t Learn Anywhere Else
Post #1: The College That Just Couldn’t Learn
Official spokespersons for Oberlin College have embarked on a no-holds-barred exercise in damage control, a frantic --but thus far-- unconvincing attempt to answer the question: how did the College manage to step in so much legal do-do that the cleaning bill may approach 25 million dollars (and that of course is the recently downsized figure:… Continue reading Post #1: The College That Just Couldn’t Learn
Gibson's Vs Oberlin 