Bates wins the North American Women & Gender Minorities Debating Championship – Burnaby Mountain Secondary School wins Novice Final
Bates sophomores Bates HW (Tessa Holtzman, Abigail Westberry) were recognized Champions of the 2017 North American Women & Gender Minorities Debating Championships (NAW*DC) on a tight 3-2 call for Closing Government, beating out fellow Bates MZ (Samantha Malone, Katherine Ziegler) across the closing bench as well as UADS JK (Moira Kelly, Emma Jones) of the University of Alberta in Opening Government and University of British Columbia & Hart House team Hybrid FB (Gozal Farrokh, Jayun Bae) in Opening Opposition. In the judge panel, the Speaker of the House Lindsay Bing directed panelists Camara Stokes Hudson, Kaja Marinic, Miriam Kohn, and redacted on the motion “This house believes that feminism is incompatible with capitalism.”
The novice final held on the topic “This house opposes democracy” was chaired by Kaja Marinic with the panel of Miriam Kohn, Jan Hovden, Allison Morrell, and Pia Lim who recognized the (high school) team of Burns CP (Miranda Collett, Panthea Pourmalek) in opening opposition as the Novice Champions after considering the teams of McGill LL (Yael Lewis, Michaela Lewis) in opening government, UVM BC (Emily Bruggeman, Clare Charlesworth) in closing government, and UVM NS (Megan Nelson, Kaya Sittinger) in closing opposition.
The top speaker of the tournament was Abigail Westberry with an average of 81 speaker points.
The break was as follows:
13 points- Denver FP (Selene Figueroa, Lauren Pauls)
12 points- Bates HW (Tessa Holtzman, Abigail Westberry)
Harvard CZ (Catherine Zheng, Amanda Chen)
11 points- UBC EW (Rob Willoughby, Katy Exton)
10 points- Bates MZ (Samantha Malone, Katherine Ziegler)
Hybrid FB (Gozal Farrokh, Jayun Bae)
UADS JK (Moira Kelly, Emma Jones)
Hybrid JT (Seyoung Jeon, Dena Tabyanian)
Ending on 10 points but unfortunately not within the break was the team of Bran SK (Noam Shurin, Sohaima Khiji).
Breaking judges were: Helen Morgan Parmett (Vermont), Lindsay Bing (Cornell), Pia Lim (UBC), Pia Co (Alberta), Charles Lewis (Alberta), Miriam Kohn (Rochester), Sarah Millman (Hart House), Jan Hovden (Bates), Allison Morrell (UBC), Alyson Duff (McGill), Mattea Roach (Hart House), Sarah Scott (Brandeis), Kaja (UBC), redacted, Kiana (McGill), Camara (Vermont).
The tournament was convened by Caroline Li of UBC, with a tab team Cyrus Zhou & Tariq Vira. The CA of the tournament was Kaja, with the DCAs being Camara, Kiana, Zoe Seaman-Grant, and redacted.
The motions were as follows.
R1: info slide: A pill containing a modified form of the rubella virus can be taken by pregnant women which will stunt the development of the fetus’s inner ear, leaving the fetus deaf. There are no other effects of this pill.
This house supports deaf parents’ choice to deafen their children in utero.
R2: This house supports the government suing meat producers/distributors to recover health care and environmental costs incurred by meat consumption.
R3: This house, as the European Union, would reject Turkey’s membership application to the European Union.
R4: This house opposes the presence of external sex characteristics (uterus, vagina, breasts) at pro-women protests (eg, the Women’s March on Washington).
R5: This house opposes the societal idea that forgiveness is a virtue.
Semi Finals: info slide: Joseph Boyden is a critically-acclaimed Canadian writer who identifies publicly as Indigenous. Boyden has received support from Indigenous and non-Indingeous communities for his writing about the experiences of Indigenous people. He has accepted awards for Indigenous people. It has recently been discovered that while Joseph Boyden truly believes he has ” native roots,” he is known to have no Indigenous heritage.
This house would prefer a world in which we never found out that Joseph Boyden has no Indigenous heritage.
Novice Final: This house opposes democracy.
Final: This house believes that feminism is incompatible with capitalism.
In other important news, at the North American Women & Gender Minority Forum facilitated by Lindsay Bing (de facto unelected chair) and hosted during the tournament by UBC, Mattea Roach of Hart House was elected chair of the North American Women & Gender Minority Council and thus the official North American representative to the WUDC Women’s Forum, facilitator of the council decisions made at the meeting, and convener of next year’s elections.
The most significant decision made by the council was the motion to create a best practices document for the NAW*DC independent of the body’s Constitution, which would be circulated by the Chair and contributed to by all eligible institutional representatives. Priorities for this document included in particular guidelines for male-identifying panelists at the NAW*DC and the representation of women and gender minorities of color, in both presence and leadership/chair positions (with adherence to and support for the contributions to these guidelines by women and gender minorities of color).
The council also decided to defer the vote on a 2018 host to an online voting process, with representatives of Bates, Vermont, and Rochester expressing interest but no institution submitting a formal and complete bid. Institutions who have sent non-male identified participants to either the 2016 or 2017 NAW*DC are eligible to participate in the vote, which will be circulated by chair Mattea.
anonym/jm.