HWS Round Robin Results – Tel Aviv Champions & Danny DeBois (Harvard) Top Speaker!
Enting Lee speaks as Leader Opposition in the final round of the 2017 HWS Round Robin (c) Howard and William Smith Colleges
The HWS Round Robin has claimed yet another weekend of the lives of some of the best debaters in the world. In a tradition that began at the 2016 HWS Round Robin, two judging panels watched each round and delivered oral adjudications independently, with the aggregate number of points & speaker points used to determine the break (tab here). After a struggle for team spots, which can be achieved either through winning a prestigious named tournament or through a competitive at-large bidding process, the teams who won the right to compete in its 2017 iteration were:
Bates (Bennett Salesman & Zoe Seaman-Grant)
Cambridge (John Papantoniou & Tom Simpson)
Cornell (Enting Lee & Adnan Muttalib)
Glasgow (Bethany Garry & Owen Mooney)
Harvard (Danny DeBois & Archie Hall)
Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Eitan Har-Oz & Benji Kalman)
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (Karan Bhuwalka & Ajinkya Deshpande)
International Islamic University of Malaysia (Ameera Moore & Mubarrat Wassey)
Johns Hopkins (Tan Kuan Hian & Harry Zhang)
Oxford #1 (Kate Brooks & Crash Wigley)
Oxford #2 (Sophie Large & Raffy Marshall)
Oxford #3 (Tommy Peto & Teck Wei Tan)
Stanford (Harry Elliott & Bobbi Leet)
Tel Aviv (Dan Lahav & Sella Nevo)
Tufts (Jeremy Chen & Drew Latimer)
Yale (Evan Lynyak & Henry Zhang)
with a judging pool of:
Ashish Kumar, Ben Frazer, Ben Kornfeld, Betsy Studholme, Brent Schmidt, Brian Wong, Brittany Haughey, Buzz Klinger, Chuan-Zheng Lee, Eric Barnes, Lex Sundarsingh, Megan Wilson, Michael Dunn Goekjian, Mitchell Dorbyk, Mo Niaz, Romeo Maione, Ryan Howson, Sarah Hofmann, Steven Penner, Syed Reefat Aziz, Tavish Logan, redacted, and Taylor Murray.
(left to right) Benji Kalman of Hebrew University and Henry Zhang & Evan Lynyak of Yale University listen to an oral adjudication at the 2017 HWS Round Robin (c) Howard and William Smith Colleges
Advancing to finals after 5 preliminary rounds & picking their positions in break order were the teams of: Tel Aviv (27 points) in Closing Opposition, Harvard (25 points) in Closing Government, Cornell (23 points) in Opening Opposition; and Yale, on 20 points, in Opening Government. On the final motion that “this house believes that governments should abandon the strategy of “decapitation” in fighting terrorism”, Tel Aviv were the champions with Harvard announced as runners-up by a panel of Ashish Kumar, Alexandra Sundarsingh, Michael DG, and Steve Penner, with Eric Barnes as chair. Lex Sundarsingh was acknowledged as the best adjudicator (a title determined by ranked ballots distributed to participants after round 5).
Motions:
R1: Info slide: “Eye in the Sky” surveillance involves constantly flying inaudible drones over large areas (say, 30 square miles). The drones take pictures of the entire area constantly. Images are stored electronically such that police can essentially turn back the clock at the location of a crime and look at where people came from or went to, potentially providing valuable clues toward solving these crimes. The image resolution does not allow for identifying individuals or reading license plates.
This house supports the use of “eye in the sky” policing in urban areas with high crime rates.
R2: This house supports democratic governments using social disgust as a grounds for restricting public speech or display.
R3: This house regrets the shift in focus within the academic study of history from studying great figures and institutions to studying cultural forces and the experiences of ordinary people.R4: Info Slide: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, “sorrow” refers to a feeling of deep sadness or regret caused by loss, disappointment or other misfortune (suffered by oneself or others).
Given the choice as an individual who is a typical, healthy 30-year-old, THW elect to never again feel the emotion of sorrow.R5: This house believes that the US should issue guest worker visas, under which minimum wage laws would not apply.
Final: THBT governments should abandon the strategy of “decapitation” in fighting terrorism.
Eric Barnes convened the tournament, with Taylor Murray serving as tournament director.
anonym/jm.
