Posted on 10/07/2015 12:01:03 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Prisoners participating in Bard College initiative to provide them a liberal arts education beat Ivy League students who won national title only months ago
Months after winning a national title, Harvard’s debate team has fallen to a group of New York prison inmates.
The showdown took place at the Eastern correctional facility in New York, a maximum-security prison where convicts can take courses taught by faculty from nearby Bard College, and where inmates have formed a popular debate club. Last month they invited the Ivy League undergraduates and this year’s national debate champions over for a friendly competition.
I’ve seen how debating skills win the argument for rehabilitation in jail Zehrah Hasan Read more A three-judge panel concluded that the Bard team had raised strong arguments that the Harvard team had failed to consider and declared the team of inmates victorious.
“Debate helps students master arguments that they don’t necessarily agree with,” said Max Kenner, founder and executive director of the Bard prison initiative, told the Guardian. “It also pushes people to learn to be not just better litigators but to become more empathetic people, and that’s what really speaks to us as an institution about the debate union.”
The inmates were asked to argue that public schools should be allowed to deny enrollment to undocumented students, a position the team opposed.
One of the judges, Mary Nugent, told the Wall Street Journal that the Bard team effectively made the case that the schools which serve undocumented children often underperformed. The debaters proposed that if these so-called dropout factories refuse to enroll the children, then nonprofits and wealthier schools might intercede, offering the students better educations. She told the paper that Harvard’s debaters did not respond to all aspects of the argument.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
White Guilt-Ridden Ivy League PC Students Throw Debate to Prisoners.
There, fixed it.
That actually doesn’t sound like something that hypercompetitive Harvard students would do.
Sounds like the inmates used the Chewbacca defense, and Harvard team couldn’t counter.
Being one does not preclude being the other.
“White Guilt-Ridden Ivy League PC Students Throw Debate to Prisoners.”
—
Not necessarily.
Great movie “The Great Debaters” True story, long before “white guilt” reared it’s ugly head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxfWwfDyPus
.
Beat me to the #Checkyourprivilege post.
The Wuss Generation will fold like fitted sheets.
The prisoners certainly would have more time to prep.
I don’t agree. I’m quite sure these guys won fair and square. After all, the best lawyers in the world are the jailhouse lawyers; the ability to debate well, a good memory for details, a clear grasp of see both sides of an argument, the ability to think creatively and quickly, are all part of good lawyering.
"Mind if we win dis debates?"
At the very least, more time for perp.
The inmates had pictures of their sisters?
Sounds like they needed Cruz to coach them.
Can we breakdown what 4 years at Prison costs vs 4 years at Harvard?
“Can we breakdown what 4 years at Prison costs vs 4 years at Harvard?”
Prison costs more. But then you do have a better class of people in prison than at havard.
One of the judges, Mary Nugent, told the Wall Street Journal that the Bard team effectively made the case that the schools which serve undocumented children often underperformed. The debaters proposed that if these so-called dropout factories refuse to enroll the children, then nonprofits and wealthier schools might intercede, offering the students better educations. She told the paper that Harvard's debaters did not respond to all aspects of the argument.Future stump-for-Trump volunteers, current and future opponents of Common Core?
Precisely my first thought.
Not surprising really, when you think about it. The thought police at U.S. universities and colleges “protect” their precious, sensitive charges from all but the most PC thoughts and ideas, banning all dissenting ideas and speech from campuses, thereby leaving their students paralyzed when exposed to the real world where not everyone is a brainwashed Marxist.
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