Tufts Debate Society wins national championships, looks ahead to final tournament

Tufts Debate Society won its first United States Universities Debate Championship (USUDC) at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia last week, moving the team from its national ranking of 16 to 1. According to Debate Society President Drew Latimer, he and the debate society's vice president of finance Jeremy Chen were the debate champions of the April 11 USUDC national tournament.

The debate team will conclude its season with its final tournament of the season this weekend at the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) National Championship, following a tournament at Wellesley College last weekend, Latimer, a junior, said.

Over four hundred debaters and sixty universities competed in the Morehouse championship this year, according to the Tufts Debate Society’swebsite. The format for the tournament was British Parliamentary (BP), a globally used style of debate which poses two teams, playing the role of "government," against another two teams who constitute the opposition, Latimer explained.

Latimer and Chen debated a wide range of topics at the tournament, including welfare, technical art, the state of the LGBT community in American society and African American boycotts within the Democratic party. Between debate rounds, teams are given fifteen minutes to prepare their arguments, they said.

The team beat debaters from Yale University, the previous year’s tournament champion, as well as students from Harvard University and Stanford University to make it to the final round, Chen, a junior, explained.

“We competed Saturday three rounds, Sunday four rounds and Sunday," Chen said. "Close to midnight actually, we found out, basically, if we made the elimination rounds.”

Latimer and Chen ultimately moved onto the elimination rounds, or octofinals, with a total of sixteen teams competing for the national title.

“In octofinals, two teams...go on to quarters, then two teams go on to semis, then two teams go on to finals, so there’s like four teams in a round, and there’s a panel of judges,” Latimer said.

The two champions were not the only students to find success at Morehouse, Latimer said. First-years John Goulandris and Suntiparp Somsak also qualified as finalists for the novice division. Additionally, Suntiparp was named the fifth novice speaker and Latimer the fifth varsity speaker.

At last weekend's tournament at Wellesley College, teams comprised of Latimer and Chen and sophomores Willy Clements and Mathew Lee placed eighth and sixth, respectively, according to an April 18 post on the team's Facebook page. First-years Ria Mazumdar and Katie Bogomolova also placed second in the novice finals at the tournament. Chen was the sixth varsity speaker and Mazumdar was third novice speaker.

Latimer said he believes this year’s first-year members are skilled debaters, as demonstrated at the USUDC tournament.

“This year we’ve had people going to elimination rounds every weekend, our freshmen won the biggest tournaments in North America, at the beginning of the year, we’ve had a bunch of people at finals, which is really new for Tufts,” Latimer said.

However, along with these successes, Latimer also said he hopes to make the group more inclusive toward first-time debaters and minorities. The champion and president of the Tufts Debate Society said he anticipates more successes in the near future, with high expectations for the world tournament in December 2016. 

“I hope Jeremy and I are going to be able to go the world championship in December and kick ass there,” Latimer said.