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The Harvard debate team, which was crowned world champions in 2014, lost out to inmates at the Eastern New York Correctional Facility. Photo: AP

Harvard's prestigious debate team loses to New York prison inmates

The prisoners are taught by faculty members from nearby Bard College

AP

Months after winning a US national title, Harvard's debate team has fallen to a group of New York prison inmates.

The showdown took place at the Eastern New York Correctional Facility, 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 also was crowned world champions in 2014. But the inmates are building a reputation of their own. In the two years since they started a debate club, the prisoners have beaten teams from the US Military Academy at West Point and the University of Vermont. The competition with West Point is now an annual affair.

At Bard, those who help teach the inmates aren't particularly surprised by their success.

"Students in the prison are held to the exact same standards, levels of rigour and expectation as students on Bard's main campus," said Max Kenner, executive director of the Bard Prison Initiative. "Those students are serious. They are not condescended to by their faculty."

Read more: US education authorities reject complaint that Harvard is biased against Asians

Shortly after the loss, students on the Harvard team posted a comment on Facebook, saying: "There are few teams we are prouder of having lost a debate to than the phenomenally intelligent and articulate team we faced this weekend."

Against Harvard, the inmates were tasked with defending a position that public schools should be allowed to turn away students whose parents entered the US illegally. Three students from Harvard's team responded, and a panel of neutral judges declared the inmates victorious.

In the end, the inmates presented an elaborate argument with which they personally disagreed, essentially telling judges that if the children were denied admission, then nonprofits and wealthier schools would pick up the slack.

Harvard team members said they were impressed by their opponents’ preparation and their unanticipated position.

"They caught us off guard," Anais Carell, a 20-year-old junior from Chicago, said.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Harvard debate team loses to prison inmates
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