The Spire

Katie Sullivan ’27

Staff Writer

     The Benedict Joseph Fenwick Debating Society hosted its first practice session of the semester on Feb. 10. Topics debated included the clash between Texas Governor Greg Abbott and President Biden over immigration, standardized testing in college admissions, and whether Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in higher education should be abolished. 

     The society introduced a new debate format for this session. In both the former and new format, each side has three minutes for an opening statement and three minutes for a closing statement. However, in this new format, teams had three opportunities to ask the opposing team questions; whereas before, teams were only allowed to ask one question. Additionally, the new format eliminated audience participation. Previously, each side had five minutes to answer questions from the audience.

     “With the new format, we hoped to implement more opportunities for direct engagement and back-and-forth between the debaters,” says co-chair Owen Whaley ’24. “In the future, we’ll be trying out different formats, including parliamentary style, to find out which works best.”

     In the debate on immigration, Ashwin Prabaharan ‘26 and Harry Courts ‘26 argued in favor of Governor Abbott, while Aidan Traverse ‘26 and Peter LaBorin ‘26 argued for Biden. Prabaharan and Courts asserted that the Biden administration underestimates the severity of the border crisis. Additionally, they argued that governors have the right to defend their states when the federal government fails to do so. Traverse and LaBorin argued that Abbott has used the border crisis as political ammunition, and that Texas does not have any legal standing to enforce federal policy. Ultimately, the audience voted in favor of Traverse and LaBorin.

     The next debate revolved around whether colleges and universities should reimplement standardized testing requirements in admissions. Maggie Baughman ‘27 and Julia Wheeler ‘27 argued the affirmative and Abigail Clark ‘27 and Katie Santini ‘27 argued the negative. Key points from Baughman and Wheeler’s side included that standardized testing helps combat grade inflation, helps districts identify gaps in their curricula, and helps create an even playing field in admissions. Clark and Santini argued that standardized testing is harmful to marginalized students and does not display the entire picture of who an applicant is. Although the audience voted in favor of the affirmative, both teams could be seen shaking hands at the end. 

Baughman says that her team met before the practice and strategized. “Julia and I met beforehand and figured out what we wanted our points to be, what we thought would be strong substantives, and we just divided up the work and did the research on our own,” she says.

     Wheeler adds she was most excited to “ask questions to the other side so that we could learn more about their perspective.” And Baughman was “most excited to do the rebuttal.”

     The last debate considered whether DEI in higher education should be abolished. Will Hansen ‘27 and Nora Kelly ‘27 composed the affirmative while Shanil Perez Lantigua ‘24 and Andrew Calixte ‘27 composed the negative. Hansen and Kelly argued that DEI should be replaced with more effective models, such as a rubric system. Lantigua and Calixte maintained that DEI policies are not just statements but policies that support students. During the debate, there was some confusion over the new format; for instance, which side would ask questions first and whether teams had to go up to the podium to ask and answer questions. In the end, the audience voted in favor of Hansen and Kelly.

     The B.J.F. Society will host a public debate on Feb. 24 featuring guest judges Professor Cynthia Hooper and Neil Cawley ’91, the Society’s former president. For more information, follow the B.J.F. Society on Instagram

(@thebjfsociety).

Copy edited by Lauren Backstrom