The New York prisoners team is composed of people convicted of violent felonies who have gone on to take continuing education classes in prison through Bard College. They debated the proposition that public schools should be allowed to refuse education to undocumented students, arguing for the proposition.
The Harvard team — who took the national championships earlier this year — did not engage with the prisoners' best arguments and lost.
The founder and executive director of the Bard prison initiative explained that debate "helps students master arguments that they don't necessarily agree with. 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.
Kenner said the Bard prison initiative, which has expanded since 2001 to six New York correctional facilities, aims to provide inmates with a liberal arts education so that when the students leave prison they are able to find meaningful work.
"The purpose of work is not to reform criminal justice per se," Kenner said, "but to engage and to relate to people who are in prison, who have great capacity and who have that dedication and willingness to work hard, as we engage any other college students."
Among formerly incarcerated Bard students who earned degrees while in custody, fewer than 2% have returned to prison within three years, a standard measurement period for assessing recidivism. This is exceptionally low, when contrasted with the statewide recidivism rate, which has hovered for decades at about 40%.
Harvard's prestigious debate team loses to New York prison inmates
[Lauren Gambino/The Guardian]
