One thing to note about the Gibson’s verdict, the Lorain County jury was apparently all white. Also, according to press reports, four black potential jurors were struck by the judge and the plaintiff’s attorneys. From a legal strategic prospective, why didn’t the College settle the case then and there?
But it is also interesting to note, as did one caller on a Cleveland call-in show, that the combined verdict in favor of a family of small-town white business owners is more than was received in settlement by the Central Park Five. There is no getting around how the issue of race poisons the record and circumstances. And that it is not at all to say that the Gibson family had racist motives in the incident. The long-held view in the College community that racial profiling had been employed over the years by store employees appears to be simply factually incorrect.
AndyManshel.nyc 
My take is that the case turned less on the issue of race than on class, culture, and generational divisions. As such, it may have been a mistake to take the trial to jury in Lorain County regardless of racial composition given how Oberlin has been viewed by its neighbors for decades. Moreover, class, culture, etc. have been at play since my time at least in interactions between the Gibsons and their student customers, creating for some an unwelcoming environment and concomitant sense of grievance.
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Steve, thanks for your thoughtful comment. And I respect your decades on the front lines of these issues in academe. However, I’d like to respectfully disagree. Marx was wrong. Economics is not the sole fundamental cause of social upheaval. Millennia of conditioning have made our species highly tribal. Race is the most divisive, hardest to bridge gap in our society and it is important not to downplay that. The students and College dean emphasized race as a factor in the original incident. The exclusion of people of color from the jury brought race front and center. And, of course, racial animosity played a central role in electing our current president the day before the incident at issue. Institutions of higher education and the political class need to focus more on how to bring people together, and less on grievances and driving people apart.
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