Their COM 180 professors must be proud because on the weekend of Oct. 16 seniors Jonathan Rios and Justin Harris led Pepperdine’s parliamentary debate team to its first-ever tournament win exhibiting an impressive display of rhetorical sparring a near-comprehensive understanding of top global issues and creative problem-solving abilities.
Forty other teams from the region competed at the Cougar Classic tournament at Azusa Pacific University including UCLA UCSB and Concordia Irvine. This was the fifth tournament of the year marking another success for the team in an already-impressive season. After five tournaments thus far this season every two-person team has held onto a winning record.
Debating a total of 10 rounds Rios and Harris only lost one of their first six preliminary rounds then powered their way through the four single-elimination rounds. Two other Pepperdine teams broke through to the elimination rounds: Shiloh Rainwater and Nicolas Kennedy reached the octofinals and Brandon Sheirman and Matt McLoon fizzled out at quarterfinals.
Aside from just winning not contestants are also judged on speaking ability alone and assigned “speaker points” accordingly. Harris received the honor of top talker and four other Pepperdine debaters were ranked in the top 15.
This is all the more impressive as Pepperdine started competing in parliamentary debate just five years ago. The event tests the versatility of contestants as they are completely unaware of the topic they are about to debate until 20 minutes before the round starts. And the range of topics? Well just about anything.
“Any world issue is fair game Rios said.
But Harris assured that by keeping up with the news, contestants can have a pretty good idea about what topics might come up.
For the final round, the debating duo received the following position to support: that Israel should give up half of its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Then, they had just 20 minutes to build a case.
Rios said they spent about five minutes discussing possible ways to divide up the settlements based on geography or in territory taken during the Six-Day War. After those efforts came up fruitless, they got a little creative.
Their plan: to have Israel not give up half of its settlements, but to have it give up half of each settlement it owns. The advantage, they said, was to force cooperation and keep Israel from being able to cut off aid to isolated regions.
But they had to fend off attacks from a number of angles. Their opponents suggested an alternative measure (called a counterplan” in debate speak) that would consist of Israel giving up half of its settlements in exchange for Hamas fully disarming. And their opponents also tried convincing the judges that Hamas would use their plan as opportunity to cause more terror.
But Rios and Harris were able to win over the judges in the end. They also said that in real life they’re sticking to what they said during the round.
The plan “is something that we would endorse Rios said. This is the best possible way to go about creating a two-state solution because forced integration would foster cooperation.”
But while supporting what they argued during the round they also agreed that not everything said during a round of parliamentary debate is practical.
“Yes this plan is overtly simple Rios said, with Harris adding that Some of it is metaphorical.”
Because according to the duo parliamentary debate isn’t about debating if a plan could be implemented. It’s about asking “What if this plan happened? Would it be a good idea?”
In order to effectively answer those questions teams are allowed to consult any resource they wish during the 20 minutes they have to prepare the case but aren’t allowed to take any of those resources into the debate room with them. Those resources usually consist of the Internet and a file of briefs that team members compiled weekly over several key global issues.
The team is optimistic about the future and getting ready for more successes this season. They debate next this weekend at the Pat Kennedy Round Robin tournament.
As coach Kristine Clancy wrote to Harris in a congratulatory card: “I hope you liked the feeling of winning because there’s a lot more of it in your future. Keep up the hard work.”