Nearly 150 students from a dozen schools arrived at Tufts this weekend to participate in a debate tournament. Contestants, competing in two-person teams, flexed their rhetorical muscle on hundreds of topics ranging from ethical science to transgender rights.
In one of the later rounds, for example, participants debated the ethics of using inhumane research conducted by Nazi scientists to further scientific research today.
Brandeis University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University were among the schools that sent students to the competition. By the end of the day-and-a-half long tournament that spanned several buildings, a team from Brandeis prevailed over the Ivies.
Tufts students did not join in the fray but played the role of administrators, judging the various debates and ensuring that the tournament ran on schedule. This was the first time Tufts Debate has hosted such an event since 1998, largely due to a period of flagging membership.
"It was a really well-run tournament, both by our standard and by those of other schools," Tufts sophomore and debate team member Alex Clough said. "The main problem with tournaments is that they'll run slowly and there'll be a big lag between rounds. But because we made a significant effort for judges to get ballots in quickly and write ballots well, things went really smoothly."
Junior and debate team member Josh Wolf hopes the success of the tournament, coupled with a recent increase in recruiting, will herald the continuing growth of the team.
"Five years ago, the team was in dormancy," he said. "In a couple of years, we've gotten the team to quadruple in size, we're having on-campus events and now this."
Clough said the tournament has the potential to sharpen discussion within an engaged and active student body. With the experience Tufts debaters gained hosting this tournament, he said, they would be better equipped to moderate on-campus debates, whether between professors or student groups such as the Tufts Republicans and Tufts Democrats.
Wolf agreed.
"We're trying to become the go-to source for all things debate on campus," he said.
- Jeremy White
