Prison debate team victorious over Harvard champs

the week ^ | 10/7/15 | Catherine Garcia

[SoFloFreeper]

The debate team from New York's Eastern Correctional Facility has major bragging rights, after beating the national debate championship team from Harvard.

In September, the inmates invited the Harvard team to the Napanoch prison for a friendly match. The Eastern Correctional Facility team was formed two years ago, and the men take debate classes taught by faculty at Bard College; about 15 percent of the inmates are enrolled in different courses through the Bard Prison Initiative. "Students in the prison are held to the exact same standards, levels of rigor, and expectation as students on Bard's main campus," Max Kenner, executive director of the Bard Prison Initiative, told The Associated Press. "Those students are serious. They are not condescended to by their faculty."

[SoFloFreeper]

Harvard education: money well spent?

[circlecity]

This doesn’t surprise me at all. The prisoners live in the real world.

[Dr. Sivana]

Harvard’s debate team has not always been among the very best. Amherst and Yale are up there. A lot may have changed since I was in debate in the ‘80s, but you have to have the right people.

Frankly, prisoners might do very well. They are used to saying what has to be said to persuade people, they have to think on their feet, and they need time and partners and a judge to practice with.

With proper instruction a couple of white collar criminals could do very well.

Finally, these debate teams have smart college students. College students. No matter how much they know, or think they know, a 40 year old is going to have a lot of gaps filled in by comparison.

[Bogey78O]

Was this Real Debate of New Debate?

I’ve seen too many garbage debates where the speaker talks really fast about racism and other non-sequitor BS.

[kenmcg]

The Harvard-ites couldn't concentrate because they kept dirtying their underwear.

[Psalm 144]

It always made me cringe to go to pardon and parole hearings. The con-artists, embezzlers and so on would do so well, and the poor dumb manslaughter types would just fail to articulate anything. When you looked at the case files, the manslaughter cases were often wrong place, wrong time, or straight up self defense which was prosecuted. The hustlers were consistently hustling, and all too often talked their way right out of prison.

[a fool in paradise]

How many lawyers are sitting behind bars?

[a fool in paradise]

Did the debate moderator ask any of them about something one of the other debaters said about their wife/girlfriend?

[glorgau]

Jailhouse lawyers...

[glorgau]

Like they taught us in grade school;

Q: What comes after a sentence?

A: The appeal.

[fungoking]

In all fairness after the Harvard team saw their sponsor shived they were a little off their game.

[Dr. Sivana]

I’ve seen too many garbage debates where the speaker talks really fast about racism and other non-sequitor BS.

Harvard does Parliamentary style debate. The format allows for a lot of BSing, but basically the topic is announced, and it is purpsefully very broad.

1. The Horn of the Hunter is heard on the hill.
2. This is the winter of our greatest discontent.
3. Many are cold, but few are frozen.
4. You can't have it both ways.

Unless there is a prepared topic (rare), the government has 10 minutes for its team to outline definitions and arguments. The Opposition only has the time while the Government to make its case to come up with rebuttals and its ownb arguments. After opening statements and rebuttals (by both members), there are closing statements.

You CAN, if you choose, make the debate about politically correct BS. So, for example, in a debate my team had at Yale against Amherst, on a prepared topic, Chris Coons and his teammate interpreted "You can't have it both ways" to argue against U.S.-run Japanese internment camps during WWII, forcing us to argue an unpopular position. Coons was an excellent debater, abnd so was his partner. My partner was the lead, and beat Coons by 1 point (43 to 42). I tied his partner (41-41) and we beat the top ranked team in tournament, and their loss kept them out of the finals, even though they had the top two individual scores.

I was a judge, and for the record judges will take into consideration whether the position you take is unpopular or not, and will give you credit for doing a good job arguing an unpopular point of view.

The emphasis in parliamentary debate is the quality of the debate. There is no real interest in using it as a deice to get to the truth. that's not what it's for.

[dfwgator]

Was Oswald Bates one of the prison debaters?

"First of all, we must internalize the 'flatulation' of the matter by transmitting the effervescence of the 'Indianisian' proximity in order to further segregate the crux of my venereal infection. Now, if I may retain my liquids here for one moment. I'd like to continue the 'redundance' of my quote, unquote 'intestinal tract', you see because to preclude on the issue of world domination would only circumvent - excuse me, circumcise the revelation that reflects the 'Afro-disiatic' symptoms which now perpetrates the Jheri Curis activation. Allow me to expose my colon once again. The ramification inflicted on the incision placed within the Fallopian cavities serves to be holistic taken from the Latin word 'jalapeno'."

[Dr. Sivana]

Did the debate moderator ask any of them about something one of the other debaters said about their wife/girlfriend?

I know you are just being facetious, referring to the NON-debates that were held recently. But just for general information, the moderator's role (Mr. Speaker) is quite limited. He announces the topic, calls upon the speakers inorder, enforces time, rules on points of order, enforces general decorum. Outside of the topic, the only questions are among the debaters only.

[gorush]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmO-ziHU_D8&feature=youtu.be

[DaxtonBrown]

That is one of the funniest skits ever. Very politicaly incorrect.

[zzwhale]

HARVARD and ALL THE IV’S
are has beens...
now nothing more than
an over endowed commie septic tank
Furthering communist ideas

[MplsSteve]

LOL!

[MeshugeMikey]

Not nearly enough?

How many lawyers are sitting behind bars?

[AlaskaErik]

When I was in the academy we were told to never engage in a debate with prisoners. They would beat down the newer officers with their experience. It was very good advice.