Topic for the 2020-2021 Season: Social justice movements should make abolition of police their top priority.

Topic Statement

“One might disagree with the argument to abolish police, but having the debate is itself productive, it forces conversations about the otherwise taken-for-granted value of police and incarceration.” -Amna A. Akbar Toward a Radical Imagination of Law, 93 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 405, 408–10 (2018)

“I think young people are saying something similar about police today. I don’t think anyone would deny that communities and society as a whole should have some kind of organized and effective means of responding to harms when they’re done. But the way the police operate today in many communities, I think it’s understandable for people to say, ’If this is what policing is then I don’t want it, I want something else.’ The police are a reflection of our politics and our culture.” -Michelle Alexander Author of The New Jim Crow

Policing in the United States is viewed by some as an absolute necessity and the only force holding anarchy at bay. To others though, it is associated with a long history of violence and cruelty. In the wake of the tragic deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, followed by the brutalization of Jacob Blake, Americans are having a long overdue national dialogue on the question of how best to respond to police brutality. The 2020-20201 Social Justice Debates challenges debaters to engage this national dialogue by answering the question of whether social justice movements adopt abolition of police as their top priority.

Past Social Justice Debates have identified a scholar(s) whose work provided the inspiration for the topic. This year, however, we are recognizing the memories of Kathryn Johnston, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Tanisha Anderson, Walter Scott, Kayden Clarke, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Stephon Clark, Atatiana “Tay” Jefferson, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and others who have unnecessarily died from excessive use of police force as our inspiration.

For the purposes of this year’s topic, the term “police” refers to the institution of policing within the United States and the various methods used to maintain a domestic monopoly on violence. Neither side of this debate should attempt to define the police as a singular actor or group (e.g., ICE), but must showcase the police as the common institution most are familiar with.

Likewise, “social justice movements” should not be interpreted to refer to a singular movement or activist group. Social justice movements refer to, inter alia, organizations, associations, networks, and individual activists and protestors focused on issues including policing or other social justice issues and for which adopting police abolition as a top priority is sensical. The topic is not intended to require affirmatives to defend the proposition that social justice movements specializing in and focused on climate change, for example, should make abolishing the police their top priority. Movements such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) can be referenced as an example, or brought up through the debate, but no single group should be considered as a social movement the conversation revolves around.

Affirmatives are required to defend that social justice movements ought to also make the rhetorical choices and policy proposals associated with the slogans "abolishing the police" and "defunding the police" their top priority if this issue is raised by the Negative. Affirmatives are required to (1) defend the use of the slogans abolish and defund the police as primary rallying cries for social justice movements and (2) recognize that in a world of limited resources tradeoffs in time and resources require strategic and tactical prioritization and to defend that in instances where such conflicts arise social justice movements should prioritize abolishing the police over other priorities.

In contrast, Negatives may argue SJM's advocating for the defunding of police is a bad idea or they may argue that even if advocating for defunding is
a good idea it should not be the top priority of social justice movements. Negative ground includes arguing that social justice movements should not adopt slogans and policy proposals such as abolish or defund the police as a top priority in a world of limited resources. This might include, for example, arguing for campaigns for reform over abolition, with reforms referring to amendments to the current system, significant or small, while abolition include the complete, or close thereto, banning or removal of the current mechanics.

Abolishing police forces is a position that is mutually exclusive from reforming the police as an institution. In this regard whether defunding the police is a reform or subsumed under the Affirmative position of police abolition depends on the lengths to which the proposal goes. For our purposes, policing reform is distinct from abolition or defunding in that it does not abolish the current system of the police institution, but only transfers a small percentage of the police budget to other projects. The Affirmative must take the stance of doing away with the current system of policing and not simply transferring a small percentage of the police budget.

Helpful literature that serves as a base for this topic includes, but certainly is not limited to:

• Amna Akbar, Toward a Radical Imagination of Law, 93 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 405 (2018).

• Monica C. Bell, Police Reform and the Dismantling of Legal Estrangement, 126 Yale L.J. 2054, 2083 (2017).

• Amy Chazkel, Monica Kim, and A. Naomi Paik, Worlds without Police, Radical History Review (2020) available at: https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-8092738

• Franciska Coleman, Between the “Facts and Norms” of Police Violence: Using Discourse Model to Improve Deliberations Around Law Enforcement, 47 Hofstra L. Rev. 489 (2018).

• Barry Friedman, Disaggregating the Police Function, NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 20-3 (2020) (U. Pa. L. Rev. (2020-21 Forthcoming)).

• Brandon Hasbrouck, Abolishing Racist Policing with the Thirteenth Amendment, 68 UCLA L. Rev. Discourse 200 (2020).

• Tracey L. Meares, Synthesizing Narrative of Policing and Making a Case for Policing as a Public Good, 63 St. Louis U. L.J. 553 (2019). 

• Alex Vitale, “The End of Policing” (2017).

Guest Judges: Finals & Semifinals

Patrick Brown is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Vermont on Community Development and Applied Economics with an MS in Educational Administration and a PhD in Educational Leadership. As a local business owner he has been a longtime stakeholder in the happenings of the locality. A board member of several local organizations, Patrick has also been awarded the City of Burlington’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Diversity and Equity.

Beverly Colston serves as the Director of The Mosaic Center for Students of Color at The University of Vermont (UVM) where she facilitates the center’s mission to enable the holistic success of students of color in a predominantly white educational setting. Colston directs a staff of five professionals who are devoted to developing culturally sensitive, equitable and empowering practices that benefit the student of color community.

Ali Dieng, Burlington City Councilor and member of the refugee community.

Kathy Fox is a Professor at the University of Vermont in the Department of Sociology. She came to UVM right after finishing her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley in 1994. Her substantive area of interest currently is prison reform, and her methodology is qualitative research, using observational research and in-depth interviews. She has long been interested in the application of sociological research for social change. Currently, she is co-creator of the Justice Research Initiative (JRI) with Professor Abby Crocker from Math/Statistics: https://www.uvm.edu/cas/justice-research-initiative-jri. They recently became part of the Urban Institute Prison Research Innovation Network (PRIN), as the research partners for the Vermont Department of Corrections. In this effort, she (and four other states) will use participatory research methods with incarcerated individuals and correctional staff, to transform prisons in Vermont. Her courses address criminal justice, corrections, and punishment. In the past, she has partnered with Department of Corrections to conduct research for them within prisons, and has brought UVM Sociology students into a facility to take classes alongside incarcerated students. This is part of the Liberal Arts in Prison Program, which she directs: https://www.uvm.edu/cas/liberal-arts-prison-program-lapp.

Mark Hughes is Director of Services of the Vermont Racial Equity Association. Mark is a community leader, organizer, advocate, and trainer who specializes in addressing systemic racism in the criminal justice system. His work in Vermont led to the creation of Justice For All, a grassroots organization with a mission to dismantle systemic racism, eliminate poverty and ensure racial equity through advocacy, education, and relationship-building.  Mark’s approach to eradicating systemic racism is informed by hundreds of engagements in community, countless hours of collaborating with elected and appointed officials, and endless testimony in Vermont Legislature. Mr. Hughes’ statewide coalition building resulted in the establishment of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, who’s legislative agenda created the Racial Disparities in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice System Advisory Panel (Act 54, 2017) where he served as inaugural Vice-Chair.  Further work of the Alliance led to the creation of the position of the Vermont Racial Equity Executive Director and Panel (Act 9, 2018 special), where the enabling statute encompasses a centralized framework for systemic racism eradication for all Vermont state agencies. Mark recently launched the Vermont Racial Equity Association, as a preeminent provider of a game-changing approach to systemic racism eradication that transforms organizations, communities and lives. This programmatic framework consisting of professional and managed services is data-driven, results-oriented, and designed to enable the agency’s compliance with Vermont Act 9, 2018 (special). Mark was the founding Tri-Chair of the Vermont Coordinating Committee of the The Poor People's Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival. He is a retired army officer, where he specialized in cryptography and has had an extensive career in cyber security. Mark resides in Burlington Vermont, where he serves as Junior Vice Commander with the Veterans of Foreign War, Post 782 in Burlington and also serves a police commissioner.

Kahlia Livingston is a Burlington native and a UVM alumni from the political science department. Although I have navigated through an array of personal forms of social injustice as a Black person in one of America’s whitest states, the content of my studies at UVM made me even more explicitly aware of the many political and social injustices that people face around the World.The intersectioning of my personal experiences with racism and sexism as well as the “textbook knowledge” that I gained inspired me to intern with an assortment of institutions that prioritized social justice work. Through my work with the Costello Courthouse Treatment Court program, Chittenden County’s Public Defender’s office, and my time with the SHECP program where I provided direct aid to some of Atlanta’s transient community, I examined how many people are failed by the systems that we, as the masses are expected to rely on. After graduating, I made it a priority to continuously fight for social justice by taking a “hands on” approach to battle such situations. These experiences led me to my current position where I volunteer as the chairperson for The Board of Directors of the Peace & Justice Center. Being an advocate for marginalized communities and fighting against inequality is my life’s mission so I greatly look forward to analyzing the different arguments presented here in the debate tournament!

Eva McKend currently serves as a congressional Correspondent for Spectrum News in Washington D.C. Described by her former news director of WCAX-TV in Vermont as "fearless," she is driven to tell stories that amplify the circumstances of marginalized groups. Eva is a proud graduate of Swarthmore College and the S.I. Newhouse master's program at Syracuse University. She is also a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Craig Mitchell is a local DJ from Burlington and a BIPOC member of the LGBTQIA community who has been a champion for equality. He has worked with NPR, the Lieutenant Governors Office and many other organizations on issues of race and gender equality. A stalwart in the music scene, he is also one of the most popular local figures who is vocal at every turn about putting people first.

Sherwood Smith was raised on the east coast of the U.S. He moved west for six years, which included earning a B.S. in Zoology from Washington State University. His love for travel has taken him to work in Antarctica, Peace Corps in Tanzania, and Kenya as an Academic Director for the School for International Training program. Working with students has been a large part of his life with experience in student affairs administration at Washington State University, Cornell University and Penn State University as the Assistant Director for Residence Life. Sherwood came to the University of Vermont in 1995 on a Doctoral Fellowship. Since then he has served as the Assistant Director of the ALANA Student Center, Director of the Race and Culture Course and currently has appointments as the Senior Executive Director for Engagement & Professional Development under the Division of Human Resources, Diversity & Multicultural Affairs, as the Director of the Center for Cultural Pluralism and a Lecturer under the Department of Leadership & Developmental Sciences. His work involves professional development training for faculty and staff, conducting research and teaching graduate courses in Educational Foundations and undergraduate courses in Human Development & Family Studies. Most recently he co-edited a two part series titled: Our Stories: the Experience of Black Professionals on Predominantly White Campuses. He enjoys cooking, bicycling, fencing and is an amateur herpetologist.

Instructions to Preliminary Rounds Judges
Elimination rounds will be judged by panels of topic experts who will be given the SJD topic, topic statement, and judge handbook. This means that as a prelims judge you are preparing students to debate before topic experts who will be using the published topic, topic statement, and judge handbook provided above to guide their decision making process. Your most important task as a prelims judge is to judge rounds in a manner that prepares the students advancing to elimination rounds to excel in those debates.

Judges are asked to interpret the research questions raised by the topic in a manner consistent with the topic statement. Students are responsible for analyzing the topic and topic statement and understanding the research questions raised for debate. Students may quote from the topic statement as necessary to establish the parameters of the research questions raised by the topic.

Debaters are asked to provide direct, succinct responses to direct questions in cross examination.  Filibustering, answering questions that haven’t been asked, and otherwise failing to provide direct, succinct answers to direct questions should result in lower speaker points and--in very close debates--assigning a loss. (Obviously open ended questions may require open answers.)

The judge handbook identifies specific obligations for students introducing evidence. This includes being ready to immediately provide copies of relevant portions of the introduced sources to their opponents for review upon request.

Please read the complete judge handbook including the topic and topic statement. This handbook is written for elimination rounds judges who possess topic expertise but who are not necessarily experienced debate judges. Again, your most important task as a prelims judge is to prepare students to excel before these judges.

Speaker points should be assigned on a scale of 90-100 with no ties.  Judges should be "reluctant" to give speaker points between 97-100; i.e., absent an exemplary performance reflecting high level research, argumentation, delivery and performance, judges should not give speaker points in this range.  "Very Good" performances should receive scores in the 95-96 range. "Good" performances should receive points in the 93-94 range. No ties. Half points are allowed.
Judges will be asked to take a picture of their ballot and email it to jparmett@gmail.com before delivering their decision. Decisions should be announced and explained. Speaker points should not.

Format
Students will compete in teams of two or three debaters each. Teams will be assigned to affirm or negate the topic.
On teams of two, each speaker will give one 6 minute speech, be cross examined for 4 minutes, and cross examine an opposing debater for 4 minutes. In addition one speaker on each team will also give a 6 minute closing rebuttal. Over the course of the four preliminary rounds, each speaker on teams of two must give two closing rebuttals for their team and their partner must give two closing rebuttals for their team.
On teams of three, during rounds each debater must give one six minute speech and either be cross examined for four minutes or conduct a four minute cross examination. (One debater on a team of three will give a six minute speech and both conduct a cross examination and be cross examined. The other two will give a six minute speech and either conduct a cross examination and be cross examined.)

1st Affirmative 6 Minutes
Cross examination by 2nd Negative 4 minutes
1st Negative 6 minutes
Cross examination by 1st Affirmative 4 minutes
2nd Affirmative 6 minutes
Cross examination by 1st Negative 4 minutes
2nd Negative 6 minutes
Cross examination by 2nd Affirmative 4 minutes
2 minutes of preparation time
Affirmative Rebuttal 6 minutes
2 minutes of preparation time
Negative Rebuttal 6 minutes

*For teams of three, the third and last affirmative speaker (instead of the second) should conduct the cross examination of the 2nd Negative speaker. And the third and last negative speaker (instead of the second) should conduct the cross examination of the 1st affirmative speaker.

Schedule

Saturday October 17

11 am: Judge Briefing

11:30 Check In & Tournament Orientation,
12:00 (or asap) Round 1
1:30 Round 2
Lunch
4:30 Round 3
6:30 Round 4

8:30 Quarterfinals TBD

Sunday October 18
11 am: Judge Briefing

11:30 Check In
12:00 Semifinals
2:00 Finals
Virtual Awards Ceremony

Registration

To register for the event, please fill out this form by October 12.