Six members from the Marshall Debate team traveled to Harvard University in Boston to compete in 38th annual Harvard National Forensics Tournament last Friday to argue in a weekend-long competition.
“This is probably the biggest thing Marshall Debate has done in a long time,” sophomore Olivia Martin said.
Freshman Anna-Liis Sutt and Sanam Analouei competed together, as did sophomores Taruni Paleru and Martin in the JV Public Forum. Public Forum duos debated the abolition of birthright citizenship in the US.
Though the JV Public Forum participants “did not do as well as expected” according to Sutt, Martin and Paleru finshed 3-3 and Analouei and Sutt finished 2-4.
Sophomore Bradley Tobias argued in the JV Lincoln Douglas Forum, and senior David Goldberg debated in the Varsity Lincoln Douglas Forum. Their topic focused on the moral permissibility of allowing domestic violence victims to use force on their attackers.
Tobias and Goldberg both finished 5-1.
Goldberg and senior Karthik Kumarappan competed two years ago.
“Two years ago, we argued about economic sanctions and whether or not it was moral to impose an economic sanction on a country as a foreign policy tool,” Goldberg said.
The team did not advance past the beginning rounds that year, and because of the sheer size of the competition, participants did “not really [expect] to place,” this year either, Martin said.