Bard Prison Initiative Helps Inmates Beat Harvard Debate Team

NAPANOCH, N.Y. — Three inmates at Eastern New York Correctional Facility in Napanoch won a debate against three undergraduates from Harvard College in mid-September.

The inmates are part of the Bard Prison Initiative, a program run by Bard College that provides college education to qualifying inmates in New York state. The Eastern New York Correctional Facility’s debate club has also defeated a nationally ranked team from the University of Vermont and the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, according to CNN.

The inmates invited the Harvard College Debating Union to participate in a debate at the facility in Napanoch. Inmates had to defend a point of view that they strongly disagreed: “Public schools in the United States should have the ability to deny enrollment to undocumented students,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

Judge Mary Nugent, leading a veteran panel, said the Bard team made a strong case that the schools attended by many undocumented children were already failing so badly that the schools were simply “dropout factories,” reported the Wall Street Journal. The team said that nonprofits and wealthier schools could step in and teach students better if they are denied admission. Nugent said that both teams did a good job, but that the Harvard College team needed to address more parts of the Bard team’s argument.

Inmates face a number of disadvantages when preparing for a debate. Lack of access to the Internet and a requirement for prison administration approval of necessary written materials can delay research, reported CNN. However, inmates have a fresh perspective on education that can put them at an advantage to typical college students because they know their education is a privilege that most inmates do not get.

Approximately 300 students are enrolled in the Bard Prison Initiative, which begun in 2001 and offers more than 60 courses each semester, according to the program’s website. In lieu of tuition, the program’s $2.5 million annual budget is funded from private donors, and that includes money spent to help other programs in nine other states follow its model. Of the more than 300 alumni who earned degrees while in custody, less than 2 percent returned to prison within three years. In New York state overall, about 40 percent of ex-offenders end up back in prison, reported the Wall Street Journal.