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Prison Debate Team Beats Harvard's National Title Winners
HughPickens.com writes: Lauren Gambino reports at The Guardian that months after winning this year's national debate championship, Harvard's debate team has fallen to a debate team of three inmates with violent criminal records. 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. The Bard prison initiative has expanded since 2001 to six New York correctional facilities, and aims to provide inmates with a liberal arts education so that when the students leave prison they are able to find meaningful work. 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," says Max Kenner. "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 prison team has proven formidable in the past, beating teams from the US military academy at West Point and the University of Vermont. They lost a rematch against West Point in April, setting up a friendly rivalry between the teams. The competition against West Point has become an annual event, and the prison team is preparing for the next debate in spring. In the morning before the debate, team members talked of nerves and their hope that competing against Harvard—even if they lost—would inspire other inmates to pursue educations. "If we win, it's going to make a lot of people question what goes on in here," says Alex Hall, a 31-year-old from Manhattan convicted of manslaughter. "We might not be as naturally rhetorically gifted, but we work really hard."
The prison team has proven formidable in the past, beating teams from the US military academy at West Point and the University of Vermont. They lost a rematch against West Point in April, setting up a friendly rivalry between the teams. The competition against West Point has become an annual event, and the prison team is preparing for the next debate in spring. In the morning before the debate, team members talked of nerves and their hope that competing against Harvard—even if they lost—would inspire other inmates to pursue educations. "If we win, it's going to make a lot of people question what goes on in here," says Alex Hall, a 31-year-old from Manhattan convicted of manslaughter. "We might not be as naturally rhetorically gifted, but we work really hard."
It's high time the US as a society fell out of love with the perp walk and permanent punishment as embodied by long term criminal records and started to embrace the idea of real rehabilitation, making "convicts" part of normal society again. And for pity's sake stop prison rape, what the actual fuck.
1. Harvard doesn't necessarily mean genuinely smart, believe me I have first-hand experience.
Well the title of the article refers to the Harvard team as "National Title Winners". In fact the article's first sentence says "Months after winning a national title, Harvard’s debate team has fallen to a group of New York prison inmates." While you could say that about random people from Harvard, you'd expect a team that won a national title in debate to be somewhat good.
Additionally, a bunch of cocky elitists from an Ivy League school probably didn't prepare in for this little shindig to the same extent as their opponents.
I'm curious to know how you think being in prison that gives a person an advantage that an elitist college student doesn't have
In fact, you might say their opponents were captivated with their training...
Er what does that mean? If anything the prison inmates were at a disadvantage in debate preparation as their access to the resources such as books and the Internet is severely limited.
Inmates face any number of challenges preparing for debate, including a lack of access to the Internet and a requirement for prison administration approval of necessary written materials, which can delay access to information.
Look at the position that the good left-wing indoctrinated Harvardites were asked to take: That forcing public schools to educate any and all children of illegal aliens is not necessarily a good thing.
Um, no. That was the position the inmates had to argue. The skill of debater is not whether the debater believes in the position personally but what arguments they can make for the position they took. In some formats, the positions are not decided until the debate so the teams have to prepare for both sides.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
their respective gangs
DuPont, Exxon, Pfizer, Wells Fargo...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The biggest part of recidivism is in the fact that too many inmates have literally nowhere to go and nothing to do once they leave prison, they literally end up sleeping on the streets on day one and quickly return to a life of crime for the goal getting incarcerated in order to get sent back to prison. Programs like this debate team and liberal arts education programs give prisoners a few extra tools and critical thinking skills that are sorely needed to survive out in the free world in order to find housing and subsequently get a job that they need to survive in a stable life. There are plenty of prisoners who have learned of the harshness of prison life and want to live a reformed and peaceful life after prison but there are normally no support programs to help prisoners integrate back into normal society.
Harvard's a *legacy* school!
You don't go there for an education, you go to make "contacts".
It's basically just a papermill for rich kids to buy degrees, and you expect them to be educated? LOL - the whole reason they're buying a degree from a legacy school in the first place is so they don't have to do any work.