CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (MyFoxBoston.com) – It was an unusual setting for members of the Harvard College Debating Union, on stage against a group of inmates from the Bard Prison Initiative.
The Wall Street Journal was there in September as the teams argued whether "Public schools in the United States should have the ability to deny enrollment to undocumented students."
The inmates were assigned to argue in favor of allowing schools the ability to deny students, with Harvard arguing in favor of education for all.
The Bard Prison Initiative began in 2001 as a way to allow inmates in the New York prison system the opportunity to earn a liberal-arts education. Since they began debating in 2014, The Wall Street Journal reports that inmates defeated teams from West Point Military Academy and the University of Vermont.
Their match against Harvard went the same way for the inmates, with judges deciding the Bard Prison Institute won the debate.
"We might not be as naturally rhetorically gifted, but we work really hard," Alex Hall, a 31-year-old serving time for a manslaughter conviction, told the Wall Street Journal.
Cox Media Group
