The prisoners who kicked Harvard’s ass: Only people who think Ivy Leaguers are smarter than felons w

[Liberal_in_LA]

The prisoners who kicked Harvard’s ass: Only people who think Ivy Leaguers are smarter than felons were surprised

When prisoners from Eastern New York Correctional Facility beat Harvard University in an exhibition debate last month, it made national headlines. It had all the elements of a classic underdog story, with a motley trio made up of violent offenders adjudged to be society’s worst, going up against a fresh-faced team made up of America’s best and brightest. Yet in this most civilized of battles, where words were the only weapons, the prisoners won.



What happened, Harvard? Was the match fixed? Nearly every report on the story explored the niggling question that the judges were biased against the Ivy League team. To the Wall Street Journal, lead judge Mary Nugent defended their decision for Eastern New York Correctional, stressing: “I don’t think we can ever judge devoid of context or where we are, but the idea they would win out of sympathy is playing into pretty misguided ideas about inmates. Their academic ability is impressive.”

To educators and advocates who work with vast and varied prison populations, the win was perfectly plausible on a generalized and specific level. (This same debate team had won a match against West Point in 2014.) As of last official count, the United States currently boasts a federal and state prison population of just over 1.5 million, of which 106,000 were female. Per numbers crunched in 2008, approximately 1 per 100 adults in the U.S. is incarcerated.

As far as these prison advocates are concerned, it’s the general public that needs to be educated regarding the systemic socioeconomic asymmetries feeding the dismal growth of rates of incarceration in a this country. The contemporary prison is no longer a penitentiary, a place of penitence and reflection, but an industry that requires demeaned and docile bodies off which it can profit. Correspondingly, there has been an alarming strengthening of the preschool-to-prison pipeline, as well as the reappearance of debtors’ prison, which makes being poor a crime in itself.


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She explains that a raft of prejudices make it too easy to dismiss “a bunch of inmates” as being incapable of debate skills and logical thinking. “The tide might be turning about mass incarceration,” she concludes, “but it’s time to look inside the humanity and abilities of the people inside prisons.”

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/06/the_prisoners_who_kicked_harvards_ass_only_people_who_think_ivy_leaguers_are_smarter_than_felons_were_surprised/

[JI7]

1. i don't know the details of this but it could be a ben carson/ron paul type thing

the students do really well with what they are supposed to do and are good in specific areas.

but that doesn't mean they are good everywhere and often lacking in understanding of society/people and anything else not part of their specific area.

[jberryhill]

2. This is not tremendously difficult to understand

Prisons have a two-hump intelligence distribution.

There are many extremely smart criminals.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. Do you have any data to support the first part of that?

Yes, I'm sure there are some smart criminals out there.

But I'd be more than a little surprised if the distribution of prisoners' intelligence was bimodal, rather than just having a high variance.

[jberryhill]

8. I'll go check

It's one of those "things I recall from long ago" and possibly obsolete.

Fig. 1 here, just looking at the serious non-sexual violent criminals, suggests an unusual high end....

http://gangsquebec.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/On-Intelligence-and-Crime-A-Comparison-of-Sex-offenders-and-Serious-Non-Sexual-Violent-Criminals.pdf

but the numbers are low.

This part is amusing

As mentioned earlier, studies on the IQ–crime relationship have always been approached with
caution by the scientific community. Considering the strong sociological roots of criminology,
hypotheses examining the possibility that criminal behavior may somehow be related to stable factors
have led to numerous disconfirmation studies. The criticisms directed toward an IQ and crime
hypothesis have focused on three main aspects. First, some scholars have argued that more intelligent
criminals are less likely to be arrested (Moffitt & Silva, 1988; Murchison, 1926; Stark, 1975).

[Fred Sanders]

3. Debaters would never even use the term "kicked their ass", making them better than writers also.

[Xyzse]

4. It really is interesting though... Did you hear about the report in which Ivy Leaguers

Do not get anything less than an A?

I don't remember where I heard it, but many from those schools can not handle anything less, and if they did, they would break down and be unable to cope. I think it was on NPR years back, when I was still listening to NPR. Oh, 2014, sounds about right.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2014/07/22/dont-send-your-kids-to-ivy-league-schools-this-means-you/

In brief, according to a piece in the most recent New Republic by William Deresiewicz, who taught at Yale for 20 years, the students who are sent there are conformist, over-privileged overachievers. They emerge from homogeneous backgrounds and grow up to be elitist little twits. (He also went to one, but he is different now.)

They overcame a little diversity, mainly not socioeconomic, to get in.

Ivy League applicants’ biggest hardship was having so little hardship in their lives that they had to hire people to take them on bus trips during the summer so they would have things to write college essays about.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118747/ivy-league-schools-are-overrated-send-your-kids-elsewhere

So, seeing this, it is not a surprise at all. I am actually quite surprised that it has not happened sooner.

[Liberal_in_LA]

10. yes, I have heard this. Once you enter an IVY league, they want a successful outcome

for you.

[Xyzse]

11. Ouch...

Hardly seems fair, and it really makes them incapable of dealing with complex issues.

Politics just sounds like it will get worse.

[JonathanRackham]

5. The prisoners were probably all former politicians

Hey it was NY.

[valerief]

6. I can't find a video of the debate. Wasn't one created? nt

[ThoughtCriminal]

9. No surprise at all for this former debater

Harvard always has an outstanding, well researched and smart debate team I went up against them a few times back in the late 70's and only recall winning one round against one of their younger less experienced members. But I have also seen what happens when you put debaters that are adapted to the peculiar world of competitive college debate into a public setting. It is very difficult for them to adapt to this very different environment - where speed, jargon and massive research are not an advantage.