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| Michael Mares, Ethan Likness, and Nate Graves in the Public Debate. |
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| Nate Graves |
The outreach event for the Rupp Debate Team, drew a capacity
crowd of 50 people—a diverse mix of students, staff, faculty and community
members—to the Middle Fork of the Salmon River Suites. The winner was decided
by the audience, which voted before the debate in order to establish a baseline
opinion measurement, and again after the debate, to gauge the shift in opinion
that resulted from the arguments presented by each side.
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| Michael Mares |
The debate included three rounds: during the first round,
each of the four speakers delivered a five minute speech supporting his team’s
position; during the second round, or the “crossfire round,” the audience asked
the speakers questions; and during the third round, the speakers delivered 3-4
minute closing statements.
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| Ethan Likness |
Graves and Likness argued that since the United States is a
nation of immigrants, it has a moral imperative to accept the Syrian refugees.
The negative team, or opposition, comprised of Freshman Jack Bradley and Senior
Michael Mares, countered that the United States
should not accept the refugees, but rather, should invade Syria to defeat
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). They argued that simply accepting
1,000,000 refugees would only help one quarter of the estimated 4,000,000 total
Syrian refugees displaced by the ongoing Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011.
Instead, they proposed that a US
ground intervention to stabilize the situation by defeating ISIS
would help all Syrians, and was the best way to ensure an end to the refugee
crisis. Graves and Likness refuted the negative team’s counter plan with the
argument that US military interventions haven’t always been successful. They
offered the examples of Vietnam
and Iraq .
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| Jack Bradley |
Prior to the debate, 29 percent of audience members voted in
favor of the motion, 33 percent were opposed to it, and 38 percent were
undecided.
Following the debate, 50 percent were in favor, and 50 percent were
opposed.
Thus, despite the fact that audience opinion was evenly split
following the contest, it shifted slightly in favor of the affirmative team of
Graves and Likness, giving them the win because their audience support
increased by 21 percentage points while the opposition’s support increase by 17
percentage points.
All four speakers were members of the ISU Rupp Debate Team. The team is housed in the Department of Communication, Media, and Persuasion in the College of Arts and Letters at Idaho State University. For more information about the team, contact Head Coach Sarah Partlow Lefevre
at partsara@isu.edu.
