Just to play the advocate here, it is my understanding that CEDA has specific
policies against harassment in debate rounds. I know when we put an invitation
out to our tournament and claim to be "CEDA-sanctioned" we are agreeing that
those policies will be enforced at the tournament that we are hosting. If
people feel that your argument is in violation of those rules, what's wrong
with asking the tournament to take action. I must also confess that I am not
as familiar with the CEDA rules as I am with the NDT governing documents, and
am not sure what a host is supposed to do in response to such accusations. It
is also the case that probably every University in the United States has
policies opposing harassing language on campus. From my experience with
various university policies that were implicated at summer debate camps over
the years, most universities prefer that harassment issues be dealt with within
the university before calling in law enforcement (unless a physical assault was
involved). Is your objection to last weekend's action that your arguments were
characterized as "illegal"? Would you really have preferred that police be
called?
Sherry
----- Original Message -----
From: Shawn T Whalen
To: Sherry Hall
Cc: Shawn T Whalen ; NEIL BERCH ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 10:45 PM
Subject: Re: [CEDA-L] [eDebate] Accusations of Illegal Debating
Hi Sherry,
I really don't think its necessary - my point is that if someone thinks that
the law has been violated and wants it enforced, they should call a cop and/or
an attorney. The debate tournament is not equiped to deal with those claims.
That being said, our debaters critique the heteronormativity in traditional
international relations scholarship and in traditional academic debating. They
suggest that the results of heteronormativity have resulted in the structuring
of terrorism and queerness in similar ways. They attempt to "interrupt these
discourses, informed by queer pedagogy, by performing a narrative which
involves explicit language and some abbreviated, fully clothed similated sex
acts. The accusation was that our performance was sexual harassment.
Shawn
Shawn--
I have to agree with Neil. There is no way for anyone to add constructive
comments or opinions about this issue when they have no idea what you are
talking about. Whether you want to debate the merits of the claim or not, some
brief explanation of what the issues are -- what is your argument? what is the
nature of the accusation of illegality? -- is necessary. Surely, if someone
threatens to kill someone else in a debate round, that is not protected speech
just because it occurred in the setting of a debate round.
Sherry
=
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