A Tale of Two Academic Teams

Chapter 3: The Isidore Newman Invitational

Then comes the tournament itself. Once again, they're going to miss half a day of courses and then cross almost the entirety of the state for the tournament, with their judges in tow, studying for their tests in the bus and keeping their minds off their speeches of any kind.

Upon arriving at Isidore Newman, the schedule of games have arrived. Which gives rise to one last speech from the coach before the start of the games, er, rounds.

"Policy, Lincoln-Douglas players, I had you entered as novice, because even though you improved during this half-season, it would have been inappropriate to move directly to varsity. However, since most local tournaments only offered one public forum division, it was appropriate to have public forum entered as varsity. Now, I won't mince words, this tournament will be rough, and in my opinion, it will be even harder than playing at the state championship, but easier than the nationals; virtually every school that has any actual chance of winning at State is here, plus some other states' champions play here, too"

In public forum, this means Arkansas, Georgia and North Carolina. But public forum's first game is not played against Bentonville, Carrolton or Durham Academy respectively. The reaction Sadie has to the judge's announcement of the first round is, simply put, priceless to the few parents and speech players in the room:

"This is preliminary round one of varsity public forum at the 2024 Isidore Newman Invitational. On the pro side, we have DCC (Detroit Catholic Central) DM..." Sadie then gasps, not expecting DCC to even be playing at a debate tournament of this caliber this far away from Detroit.

Detroit Catholic? I knew DCC was a formidable quiz bowl school, but in debates? We're venturing into the unknown here, Sadie thought, while David, one of the DCC players gets into position onto a makeshift podium, as soon as the resolution is heard.

"They will be debating Resolved: The United States should lift economic sanctions against North Korea" the judge finishes introducing the round.

David, DCC's first speaker, seems to focus mostly on the implications of lifting economic sanctions on North Korea alone, and mostly on its economy and its stockpile of nuclear weapons, with next to nothing on what it implies for the rest of East Asia. Or American interests, be it at home or in East Asia. What the hell, DCC? Why is it that they focus only on North Korea proper? Sadie muses while she is taking notes for when her turn comes on the rebuttal.

Surprisingly, Joe seems to have a decent crossfire for this game, where he asks questions about the implications for both American interests and the rest of East Asia, especially China, Japan and South Korea. The best crossfire he played on this topic.

So Sadie points out the American public opinion is not favorable in any shape or form and any attempt at lifting economic sanctions would be met with considerable domestic backlash, while multilateral coordination would be necessary to achieve what sanction lifting would aim. Then comes the inevitable crossfire, where DCC's second speaker, Lance, has tensions run high, even though the opening statement from DCC's first speaker already had some glaring issues.

"Even though the United Nations might have implicitly admitted, over the past few years, its failure for sanctions to have any real impact on North Korea's nuclear program, did you consider that the legal landscape of the United States' sanctions on North Korea is very complex because of the lack of legislative consistency of these sanctions?" Sadie asks DCC's second speaker.

"Can you please explain what you mean by a lack of legislative consistency?" DCC's second speaker asks, dumbfounded by Sadie's last question.

"Some of these sanctions were imposed by executive order under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, while others were Acts of Congress in their own right. Sanctions were imposed piecemeal..."