1) How does a judge determine what is an unreasonable request made to censor an argument? Ede's posts prove that there are surely disagreements about what "should be" offensive on issues of race. Does the accidental profanity slipping out warrant a loss with zero points if someone claims it made the environment "hostile?" If we aren't going to debate these issues out - as Lousiville has done for years - will we ever get to hear from both the accuser and the accused? I want us to place a VERY HIGH presumption against ethics/legal claim that stop debates on these grounds. Proof of the accusation should require more than the claim that "We were made to feel uncomfortable."
2) How are judges made to be accountable for their philosophies? Ede says that Lousiville will make people defend them - how will that work. Philosophies in this regard operate as prior restraint censorship and while I'm certain that there are times when that is warranted, we should be very careful in the use of that power.
3) None of us know all the students in the activity and we typically identify with the students that we work most closely with. In doing so we make judgements about debate that favor their experience and circumstances and we functions, often, as their advocates. However, as we do that, we necessarily prefer their experiences and circumstances over that of others in the community. (There are real difference between the cultures at Pepperdine, Liberty, and SF State). One of my favorite aspects of this community is that it encourages us to debate out those thorny differences while we trust that we all have our collective self-interest at heart. I feel like free _expression_ and the tolerance of challenging debate strategies has been one of our greatest strengths in this regard - please consider those issues as well as you update your judging philosophies.
Shawn
PS - I've let a number of references to SF State debaters using pornography etc. slide, please don't make the assumption that those statements are accurate.
Sherry says:
Greetings All--
I am writing on this list because I have been told that this is the one that all directors see whether they read the traffic on e-debate or not. I gather that many of you also read the edebate traffic, so my request in this message will duplicate an earlier request posted on edebate. If you have not been keeping up with the discussion last week, we have been having one of the most intense discussions about what constitutes sexual harassment in debate rounds and what we as a community and, in particular, the NDT Board and Committee need to do about it. The issue is on the agenda for both meetings at NCA next week. It is my understanding that CEDA may add it to their meeting as well.
As I have spent last week grappling with what a sexual harassment policy should look like, one person sent me an email that got me to thinking that there is an immediate action that everyone can take without having to wait for some top-down statement from one or both of the organizations. Every person who judges debates in this activity already has a forum for voicing her/his opinions on what she/he considers inappropriate speech and/or performances, and how those issues should be handled in a round. I am urging everyone to update their judging philosophies with specific reference to how you view claims of sexual and/or racial harassment in debate rounds.
While I certainly think the content of what you say should be left up to you, here is an example of the language in one person's judge philosophy that can serve as a guide for what I am talking about.
"Explicit material in debate - Although I am for free speech, I am also a strong advocate for creating non-hostile environments in educational settings. I believe debate is an academic activity that uses the classroom as a laboratory, but it is still a classroom and I am still an educator. Therefore, I am inclined to disallow material in debate that I would disallow in my classroom experiences. I believe that you can discuss certain things without using explicit sexual descriptors and/or explicit language. Although this has not been widespread in debate, I feel its important to let people know that I will consider a request from the opposing team (or from me) to stop the use of explicit material/language to be a signal of discomfort on their (or my) part, and deserving of respect. In the end, if you are going to make such arguments, it is probably a good idea not to prefer me. And if you have me as a judge, I consider this a statement of my discomfort with this material and hope that you would respect that and change your approach."
I see several advantages to using the bottom-up approach of everyone amending their judge philosophies as a powerful first step in addressing this problem. First, as mentioned above, you can voice your opinion and not wait for one of the governing bodies to try to do it. Second, you can clearly communicate to debaters in the round what you think of the issue. If you have an opinion similar to the one expressed above, then you are alerting the debaters who might create a hostile environment for the other team that they should maybe reconsider, and you are empowering the team that feels harassed to speak out about it. I received numerous emails from people privately describing rounds where they felt harassed but said nothing because they didn't know how it would be received. Third, we can use the sentiments expressed in the judging philosophies in the development of an official statement on the issue. Instead of guessing what the community thinks of this issue, we will have a data set to look at.
I know this is the day before Wake and this issue is probably not nearly as high on everyone else's agenda as it is on mine. But it doesn't take long to update the philosophies these days. Please forward this email to everyone that you hire or bring to judge for you as well.
If you are interested in participating in the process of trying to formulate a sexual/racial harassment policy and/or have any particular experience in this process, please contact me and let me know.
Thanks,
Sherry
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