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Several college debate clubs that feature members preoccupied with minority issues have decided the traditional tournament format promotes white privilege. They have responded by refusing to play by the official rules, ignoring time limits and rebutting their opponents with rap and spoken-word poetry.

Fawning, sympathetic, liberal judges have of course rewarded such antics.

The most recent example came from the March 24th Cross Examination Debate Association, where two Towson University students — identified as black females by The Atlantic — won the championship. The students were challenged to debate presidential war powers. Instead, they insisted on discussing the supposed war on black communities being waged by the U.S. government.

In the final round, the Towson students faced another black team, from the University of Oklahoma. The teams used rap, hip-hop and spoken-word poetry to argue about such scholarly concepts as “nigga authenticity” for four hours. Not to be deterred by the clock, which keeps strict time for debate participants, one of the Oklahoma students yelled, “**** the time!” when his time ran out, and continued talking.
ording to The Atlantic, a similar thing happened last year, in 2013. The winning team — two black men from Emporia State University — quickly went off topic and instead chose to discuss how college debate tournaments promote the interest of straight, white, rich people.

Many of these tactics violate debate tournament rules. The use of the word “nigga,” for instance, violates the anti-harassment policies of CEDA and the National Debate Tournament. Judges decided to look the other way regarding this and other outbursts, however.

Northwestern University debate coach Aaron Hardy was perturbed by the erosion of structure in the debates, and tried to organize an informal tournament where all participants would agree to follow the posted rules and debate the actual topic.

Efforts to organize this tournament were derided as racist, and Hardy was forced to abandon his plan.

“This is the power of racial subordination: making the viewpoint of the dominant group seem like the only true reality,” said Osagie Obasogie, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings College of Law, in a statement.

Hardy maintained that rules and structure are not inherently racist.

“Having rules is not something that reflects a middle-class white bias,” he said in a statement. “I think it is wildly reductionist to say that black people can’t understand debate unless there is rap in it — it sells short their potential.”

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Originally posted by Henry_Pym
As someone who just got back from a political debate at my school, I can testify to the embarrassing state they are in.

We were debating maternity leave as a fundamental human right.

I wasn't given a rebuttal outside of standard slurs.

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Originally posted by jaden101
Shut up gayfag

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According to Joe Leeson Schatz, one of the unstated reasons for trying to set up policy-only debates is that once-dominant debate teams from colleges like Harvard and Northwestern are no longer winning the national competitions. “It is now much easier for smaller programs to be successful,” he said. “You don’t have to be from a high budget program; all you need to win is just a couple of smart students.” Schatz believes that the changes in college debate are widening the playing field and attracting more students from all backgrounds.

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Originally posted by Surtur
Were they or were they not told to debate a certain topic and then just decided "nope, I'm gonna talk about something else" ? Did they or did they not violate numerous rules in these debates and yet still somehow get awarded victory?

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Originally posted by Bardock42
You can just read the article. Apparently they used the premise as a jumping off point for a meta-debate. The article references the "**** the time" incident, but doesn't go into details either.

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Originally posted by long pig
Meta debate lol

Maybe in the LGBT/european community Meta debate is saying "I ain't gotsta follow no cracks ass rules you racist honkey!", but here its just ignorant thugs talking jive.

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Originally posted by Bardock42
It seems that the preeminent debating societies of America disagree with your assessment.

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Originally posted by long pig
Which most likely means I'm correct.

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These days, an increasingly diverse group of participants has transformed debate competitions, mounting challenges to traditional form and content by incorporating personal experience, performance, and radical politics. These “alternative-style” debaters have achieved success, too, taking top honors at national collegiate tournaments over the past few years.

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Originally posted by Bardock42
You can just read the article. Apparently they used the premise as a jumping off point for a meta-debate. The article references the "**** the time" incident, but doesn't go into details either.

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Originally posted by Surtur
The article also said that doing such things were a violation of the rules.

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Originally posted by Surtur
The article also said that doing such things were a violation of the rules.