Sophia Carter, ’22 and Ben Dewhurst,’21 reached the semi-finals of the Lafayette Debate Tournament held online during April 24-25, 2021.
A partial list of the schools competing including Air Force, Army, Ecole de guerre-Terre (War College of France), George Washington, Patrick Henry, University of Wisconsin (Madison), University of Miami, University of Minnesota, University of Vermont, and Vanderbilt.
The Lafayette Debate Tournament is organized by the Higher Education Departments of the French Embassies to the United States in partnership with George Washington University.
Several features make the Lafayette Debate Tournament unique. The tournament selects its own debate topic. This year’s topic was that, “Governments should impose civil and/or criminal penalties on social media companies providing platforms for violent extremism.” The debates also follow a peculiar format where each team gives two constructive speeches (6 minutes) followed by a cross-examination period (4 minutes). But, each team gives only one rebuttal speech (6 minutes) with the negative speaking last.
The Lafayette Debates also attract schools participating in all styles of debate, including NDT/CEDA Policy Debate, British Parliamentary Debate, and Worlds Universities Debate. And, the participation by several teams from France adds an international flavor.
During the Saturday preliminary rounds, Carter & Dewhurst won three of their four debates, defeating teams from the United States Military Academy, Ecole de guerre-Terre (War College of France), and the University of Vermont.
For the Sunday elimination rounds, all the judging panels featured policy experts from France, the UK, and the United States. In the quarter-finals, BC as the 4th seed met the 5th seed from Vanderbilt. The coin flip was won by Vanderbilt who chose to debate on the negative. BC prevailed in a 3-0 decision.
In the semi-finals, BC met the 8th seed team from Patrick Henry who upset the top seed from George Washington in the quarter-finals. Patrick Henry won the coin flip and opted to debate on the negative side.
For the semi-finals, five person judging panels were used with policy experts having little debate experience. The judges are encouraged to arrive at a consensual decision. Unfortunately, for BC, the three French judges (Guillaume Signorino of the Université PSL; Sylvain Quatravaux, International Affairs Manager at the Center for the Americas International Affairs Division (DAIE) at Sciences Po; and Camille Roger, of the International Relations Department of Université PSL) voted as a block for Patrick Henry. So, Patrick Henry prevailed in a 3-2 decision.
BC won over the judge from the UK (Dr. Garret J. Martin, Co-Director of the Transatlantic Policy Center) and the judge from the U.S. (Dr. William Rand, Executive Director of Business Analytics Initiative and Associate Professor of Marketing at North Carolina State).
In the final round, two teams from Patrick Henry debated for the Championship.
For information about Fulton Debate, contact John Katsulas at katsulas@bc.edu.