Bard Prison Initiative Debate Union Defeats University of Cambridge in Historic Debate
How maximum security inmates took on Cambridge in a debate about nuclear weapons — and won
On Friday, April 19, the Bard Prison Initiative Debate Union debated the University of Cambridge—the oldest and most competitive debating society in the world—on the topic of whether or not all countries should have a right to nuclear weapons. And they won.The three students from the University of Cambridge, wearing black suits and clutching sheaves of papers, stepped onto the wooden auditorium stage under the warm yellow lights. As members of a storied debate team, they had competed the world over but never in a place like this — a stripped-down hall in a maximum-security prison in Upstate New York that looms among the Catskill Mountains like a medieval castle.
In the center of the stage, three men wearing state-issued green pants and bow ties they had borrowed from their fellow prisoners stood ready to greet their privileged opponents. Only one of the inmates had finished high school before entering prison. Read the full article in the Washington Post
Post Date: 04-20-2019