Tuesday, February 05, 2019

With Judges Like This....

I work with high school students every day.  I don't agree with most of them.  Still, I would never harm them academically over their beliefs.  Mature adults don't punish kids in this way:
A pair of Utah high school seniors lost a debate round because they read quotes from Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro and clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson, who were deemed “white supremacists” by the judge...

The other team, during the cross-examination section of the debate, said Moreno and his partner could not talk about fairness because they were “white males"...

The judge ended the round after Moreno’s quotes from Shapiro and Peterson, as the other team continued to affirm that they had no standing as “white males"...

Moreno then spoke to the tournament directors, who both work for Arizona State University (The Daily Wire will not name them as they did not respond to a request for comment). These two affirmed that the team has a “legitimate gripe” over their treatment, but that Moreno and his partner were there to debate for that particular judge, and their arguments failed to persuade him, whether he was impartial or not.
This entire situation makes a mockery of a debate competition (the opposing team did slam poetry instead of presenting arguments), and the judge is a rabid racist.

Were there no adults around to do the right thing?

1 comment:

Pseudotsuga said...

Every time I read about "debate" stories, I recognize that what *I* think of debate is an outdated model, and it has been replaced with this:
These poor white kids from Utah decided to play by the wrong rules, and got punished for it.