On top of being one of America’s leading Ivy League institutions, Harvard University also has the distinct honor of housing one of the world’s most prestigious debate teams. They’ve won numerous national titles, not to mention world championships. And yet, even they proved to be no match for New York’s team of 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.
The Harvard debate team lost to a prison debate team: https://t.co/vSm3dh3VnR pic.twitter.com/qbzGvhIg43
— Affinity Magazine (@Affinitylife) October 6, 2015
In the match, inmates defended the premise that students whose parents entered the US illegally should be turned away from schools.
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.
This is not the first win for the Eastern New York Correctional team. In the two years since starting the club they have challenged and beaten teams from the University of Vermont and the US Military Academy at West Point, with whom they have established an annual match and a budding rivalry.
The Harvard victory may be their biggest success; the Harvard team have won both the national and world championships.
Following the event, the Harvard team took to Facebook to congratulate their opponents.
“There are few teams we are prouder of having lost a debate to than the phenomenally intelligent and articulate team we faced this weekend,” they wrote. “And we are incredibly thankful to Bard and the Eastern New York Correctional Facility for the work they do and for organizing this event.”
prison debate team, whose members convicted of violent crimes, beats debate team from Harvard https://t.co/0JHhaQ4XQu pic.twitter.com/HvAEWPgOfn — Cudi Washington (@TheNearbyTower) October 4, 2015
While some may be surprised by the inmates win against the Ivy Leaguers, those at Bard who have worked with the prisoners aren’t the least bit surprised.
“Students in the prison are held to the exact same standards, levels of rigor and expectation as students on Bard’s main campus,” said Max Kenner, executive director of the Bard Prison Initiative, which operates in six New York prisons.
“Those students are serious. They are not condescended to by their faculty. They make the most of every opportunity they have.”
