Months after winning the national title, Harvard’s prestigious debate team faced an opposing team they could not beat. So who was it? Another Ivy League team?

No.

It was a group of inmates from Napanoch's Eastern Correctional Facility.

The maximum-security prison allows convicts to participate in courses taught by faculty from Bard College. Last month the inmate debate club invited the Ivy League undergraduates and this year’s national debate champions over for a friendly competition.

According to The Guardian, 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. The Eastern Correctional inmates were asked to argue that public schools should be allowed to deny enrollment to undocumented students, a position the Harvard team opposed.

Mary Nugent, who served as one of the judges, said 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. Nugent said that Harvard’s debaters did not respond to all aspects of the argument.

This isn't the first time the inmate debate club have proven victorious The prison team has beaten teams from West Point and the University of Vermont. They lost their rematch against West Point in April.. The competition against West Point has become an annual event, and the prison team is preparing for the next debate in spring.

 

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