The Scarsdale tournament went swimmingly. Everything was
single-flighted, except the last couple of novice rounds, and I can’t recall
changing more than a couple of judge assignments, always for reasons other than
anyone engaged in shenanigans. Once again, as at Rather Large Bronx, the girls who made it
to the final round were declared co-champions, at their request. Nice.
We talked in the tab room about girls in the activity, and
how MJP probably works against them. At Scarsdale, people had strikes, but that
was it. In the tab room, we simply noted which judges were experienced and
which were not, and that was as far as we went when it came to making any
particular assignments. That is, we wanted the experienced judges on the rounds
that mattered the most. Makes sense, right? After all, there were bids at
stake.
As a result of this, all the women in the judge pool judged
a lot, and they judged a lot of important rounds. There was no bias for them or
against them as adjudicators. Am I saying that female judges are biased in
favor of female debaters, and that the female debaters did better as a result?
No. But I am suggesting that at pref tournaments, those female judges might
not have been in those rounds. And further, the preffed judges who would be in
those rounds, young college males, are indeed biased, at least subconsciously,
in favor of male debaters. If you don’t believe this, you haven’t been following
gender discussions very closely in the activity. But even so, being the only
female in the room—or being the only anything in the room—is problematic, while
being the only rich young white guy is probably a lot less problematic than
being the only anyone else. Just sayin’. A diverse judge pool used virtually at random will by default increase the comfort level for the students who often get no
comfort in a round whatsoever.
I have for a long time been a proponent of MJP, based as
much as anything as it is the best solution to the question of who gets to rank
the judges, if the judges are going to be ranked at all. There are tournaments
where students enter in full battle armor, supported by coaches and assistant
coaches and concierge coaches and whatnot, and the competition is murderous.
Those folks expect MJP, and all use it to their perceived advantage. Including young women. Given that
Rather Large Bronx is one of these tournaments, and a few weeks ago it resulted
in two female co-champions, it is clear that girls are perfectly capable of
getting the job done in that environment. But not all tournaments need to use
MJP, or any ranking at all, by anyone. A few strikes to clear out the hoi and
the polloi, sure, and then you debate in front of whomever. At Scarsdale we certainly weren’t assigning
female judges to see female debaters. It never would have occurred to us. It
was just random, with that previously mentioned exception for experienced
versus inexperienced. The end result seems to be that there remains much to be
said in favor of randomized judging. If LD is to have any value beyond the full-battle
paradigm—and I’ve always claimed that the least value of the activity is derived
from the full-battle paradigm—then we need to keep at least some tournaments
without MJP. And they need to be viable bid generators. A great speaker can convince
anyone of anything. In high school debate, that leads to picking up ballots. IRL,
it means getting jobs and presenting winning ideas and so forth. A successful
debater, as compared to a great speaker, often can only convince a small number of people about something
relatively arcane. IRL, this may translate in great backroom skills—you’ll be
one hell of a researcher in the odd corners of any relevant literature—but not
much in the way of winning people over to your way of thinking.
And what are we supposed to be doing here anyhow? Education?
Or winning rounds?
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