The Fulton Debating Society won the novice division of the Texas Open hosted online and in-person by the University of Texas (Austin) during February 5-7, 2022. Approximately half of the teams attended in person. Boston College competed on-line.
A partial list of teams participating in the tournament included Cornell, Dartmouth, Emory, George Mason, Georgetown, Harvard, James Madison, Navy, Northwestern, U of Iowa, U of Kansas, U of Minnesota, U of Michigan and USC.
Debating for Boston College at the tournament were Caleb Wachsmuth,’24 and Ian McNabb’24. During the preliminary debates they were 4-2 defeating teams from Liberty, University of Houston, George Mason, and the University of Minnesota.
In the octo finals, Wachsmuth & McNabb debated against a hybrid team with students from James Madison & Texas Tech. Debating on the negative, BC won in a 3-0 decision.
In the quarter finals, BC debating on the affirmative, defeated Liberty in a 3-0 decision.
The semi-finals set up a re-match against New York University who defeated BC in the quarter-finals of Wyoming in December. With NYU debating on the affirmative side again, they advocated the same plan, which was the Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act. This is a plan being promoted by Senator Klobuchar, which would adopt a number of measures to block future mergers and acquisitions. In a 2-1 decision, BC defeated NYU.
In the final round, Boston College faced a hybrid team of students from the University of Houston & The New School. BC won the coin flip and opted to debate on the negative. Houston/New School supported a plan to have the Federal Trade Commission (FC) file an avalanche of law suits against Amazon alleging antitrust and National Labor Relations violations. This affirmative case argued that Amazon exploited workers by offering low wages and providing unsafe working conditions.
In response, Wachsmuth & McNabb argued that Amazon paid higher wages than other companies and was adopting measures to improve working conditions in its warehouses. Boston College also argued that, by reducing the profits of Amazon, the plan would decrease investment and innovation in artificial intelligence, which supports the U.S. military to compete against China.
The decisive argument that won the debate for BC was that the U.S. Congress would backlash against the FTC by cutting their funding and staff. BC proved that over-aggressive enforcement by the FTC would result in Congress retaliating against the agency.
In a 2-1 decision, the judges voted for BC. The two judges that were in the majority were former National Debate Tournament Champion debaters from Kentucky (2019) and Dartmouth (2021). Therefore, BC felt highly confident that they deserved to win the debate.
For information about Fulton Debate, contact John Katsulas at katsulas@bc.edu.