Harvard debate team loses to inmates from maximum-security prison

Harvard University’s award-winning debate team is among the best in the world, but undergrads at the Ivy League school fell short of securing a victory recently against a rather unusual adversary: a panel of inmates from a maximum-security prison in upstate New York.

Prisoners incarcerated at Eastern New York Correctional Facility near Poughkeepsie were declared the winners of a debate held last month against members of Harvard’s team in which the two sides were asked to argue whether public schools in the United States should have the ability to deny enrollment to undocumented students.

“They caught us off guard,” Anais Carell, a 20-year-old Harvard junior from Chicago, told the Wall Street Journal. 

Inmates at Eastern aren’t afforded the same educational opportunities as Harvard undergrads, but a program that’s available there and at five other state facilities since 2001 — the Bard Prison Initiative — does offer prisoners the chance at taking up to 60 courses a semester that may be counted toward college credit.

Roughly 40 percent of ex-offenders in the Empire State end up back in prison within three years of being released, according to the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. Around 15 percent of Eastern’s inmates are enrolled in the educational program, The Associated Press reported this week, and recidivism among alumni is closer to 2 percent.

“There is so much talent in the U.S. that has no access, no opportunity, that is completely unengaged by leaders in higher education. But we know extraordinary talent can be found in the most unconventional places,” BPI founder Max Kenner told the Huffington Post.

Alumni of the educational program have gone on to attend classes at Yale and Columbia universities after completing their prison sentences, and more than 300 have earned degrees while behind bars during the 14 years of the BPI’s existence, Mr. Kenner said.

The program’s $2.5 million annual budget is funded by private donors, and the program is offered through Bard College, Mr. Kenner’s alma matter.

“We have been graced with opportunity,” Carlos Polanco, a 31-year-old Queens man serving time for manslaughter, told the Wall Street Journal. “They make us believe in ourselves.”

Indeed, BPI students made an impact among academia as of late, and even before last month’s win against the Harvard undergrads. While defeating the current U.S. champions is no small feat, enrollees of the Bard program have previously secured victories against the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the University of Vermont.

“There are few teams we are prouder of having lost a debate to than the phenomenally intelligent and articulate team we faced this weekend,” Harvard’s team wrote on Facebook after last month’s loss. “And we are incredibly thankful to Bard and the Eastern New York Correctional Facility for the work they do and for organizing this event.”