If libel laws now allow you to successfully sue for tens of millions of dollars because you falsely accuse somebody of being a racist, that's a sad day for freedom of speech. The impact would be truly chilling on national debate.

As I stated elsewhere, there are absolutely limits to libel laws based on Constitutional issues as decided in NYT v Sullivan. I wish people were arguing that based on the facts of this case, not to worry. Instead what I'm hearing from comments like yours is that calling somebody racist and urging a boycott based on it should be enough, just because the underlying accusation is wrongheaded.

To me, the most important factor in this case is that after the protests, etc the Bakery first asked the University to simply retract it's claims that it was racist and had a history of racism. The University refused, despite having no proof of it's claims, which shows bad faith at least. Another fact that goes to bad faith are the lies they made on the stand, refusing to take responsibility for their actions. If you're reading was correct, and it was an honest mistake, then the University could have and should have corrected it's statement, and should not have lied on the stand.

Another point you make here doesn't make sense: this isn't about "national debate". This is, roughly, about one agent harming another agent with a set of lies designed to harm. If this case involved a newspaper editor getting sued for libel because he called a politician a liar, then yes, you might have a point. But it isn't.

I agree with you about things that make their case weaker.

I would disagree if you're claiming that the national debate about racism only applies to newspapers talking about politicians. There's a HUGELY IMPORTANT debate in the culture generally about racism that I'd argue just as important if not moreso.

(That said, from a legal standpoint it's obviously true that a politician is a clearer-cut case of a public figure. That obviously matters when judging the merits. But you seemed to be suggesting that talking about this case in terms of the national debate around racism is irrelevant.)