Santa Monica College's Speech and Debate Team Host Intramural Tournament
Santa Monica College's Speech and Debate team hosted their first annual intramural tournament, resulting in one winner taking home the first place medallion.
On April 25, Santa Monica College's (SMC) Speech and Debate team hosted their first annual intramural tournament on the online platform, 8x8. Ten students, with varying levels of debate experience, competed in five rounds for the first place medallion.
Founded nearly a century ago in 1929, the SMC Speech and Debate team has a history of sporadic operation. After an advisor would step down, the team would cease to exist for decades at a time. Under Professor Nate Brown's advisory since 2005, the team is in its longest consecutive run of 16 years.
“I see debate as our ability to think outside the box... It gives us that space to kind of pretend for a moment that there is more to life and there is more to the state we’re living in," said the SMC Speech and Debate team co-captain, Ariyana Tavakoli. "There are other countries, there are other planets...we can discuss things that we have in common, things that we don’t have in common, things that we believe. It’s like a high that is unmatched."
Present on the panel of final round judges were SMC Chief of Police Johnnie Adams, Associated Students President Tafari Alan, and SMC's President Dr. Kathryn E. Jeffery. Finalists of the tournament, SMC students Orion Young and Jules Shinbrot, were given a wide range of topics to choose from, including "Free the nipple" and "Public colleges and universities should be tuition-free."
The two finalists came to a consensus on "Soleimani's death was a war crime" as the final topic to debate. On January 3, 2020, former President Trump ordered a drone strike to kill Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. In his remarks to reporters on the same day, Trump stated that "Soleimani was plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel, but we caught him in the act and terminated him." The U.S. has since changed their reasoning several times for killing Soleimani, giving little information about these imminent plots.
The weighing mechanism, or basis for arguments, was the legality of Soleimani's death. On the affirmative side of the topic, Shinbrot advocated that the U.S. failed to provide a self-defense claim. Therefore, legally speaking, there was no circumstantial cause to kill Soleimani. On the opposing side, Young argued that there were no laws in place, internationally or domestically, that would deem it illegal. He declared that this raises questions about holes in the United States' legal systems on these matters.
Ultimately, Shinbrot took home the first place medallion, with Young following in a close second.
Team co-captain, Dexter Cypress, outpoured his appreciation for Brown during the tournament's awards ceremony. "The amount of work every day that Nate Brown does to ensure that the Speech and Debate team will continue to thrive long into the future goes unmatched," said Cypress. "Everything that [he] does for the emotional well-being of his students is seen in our lives every day... We all owe everything to Nate Brown...Words cannot describe."
Brown and the team's captains encourage SMC students of all experience levels and backgrounds to join the team. For more information, students can visit the Speech and Debate section on SMC's website.
