Harvard University Debate Team Loses To...New York Prison Inmates

US National Debate champs, Harvard University, have lost in a debating match with inmates at Eastern Correctional Facility in New York state.

Only months after winning the national crown and a year after winning the world debate title - the ivy league team lost on the subject of the children of illegal immigrants being refused entry into US public schools (state school equivalents).

Harvard Debate team wrote on their own Facebook page: ‘There are few teams we are prouder of having lost a debate to than the phenomenally intelligent and articulate team we faced this weekend.

‘And we are incredibly thankful to Bard and the eastern New York correctional facility for the work they do and for organizing this event.’

Inmates at the all-male prison are taught courses by professors from nearby Bard University as part of a six-prison-wide prison initiative, reports the Guardian.

The prison’s debate team has become very popular among inmates and has competed with a variety of outside debate teams such as their annual grudge match against West Point Academy.

Max Kenner, executive director of the Bard prison initiative said: ‘ The fact that we won is nice, but it isn’t the most important thing.

‘Students in the prison are held to the exact same standards, levels of rigor and expectation as students on Bard’s main campus.

‘Those students are serious. They are not condescended to by their faculty.’

Inmates can earn degrees through the iniative with some graduates having continued their studies at Yale and Columbia.