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.
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.