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Harvard's award-winning debate team loses to New York prison inmates
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Harvard University's award-winning debate squad has fallen to a team of unlikely opponents – New York prison inmates.
According to The Associated Press, Harvard's team, which won a national championship this year and a world championship in 2014, recently faced off against inmates at the maximum-security Eastern New York Correctional Facility. There, prisoners can take classes led by Bard College faculty.
At the match, the inmates, who also have beaten teams from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the University of Vermont, and the Harvard team debated whether public schools can refuse to admit students whose parents entered the country illegally. Neutral judges evaluated the teams' responses and chose the prison's debate club as the winner.
Bard Prison Initiative Executive Director Max Kenner said he wasn't surprised that the inmates won.
"They make the most of every opportunity they have," he said.
The Harvard team congratulated their opponents in a Facebook post.
"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."
>> Click here to see the Facebook post
This weekend, three members of the HCDU had the privilege of competing against members of the Bard Prison Initiative's...
Posted by Harvard College Debating Union on Sunday, September 20, 2015
