cedatopic

CEDA Topicblog is moving

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Stables) — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 23:08:00 +0000

Thanks in large part to the success of this site it is now necessary for us to move to a site that allows additional features, including a means of indexing the threads and a corresponding website to store all of the relevant materials. Anyone who saw the difficulties the site faced on the last day of the CEDA summer meetings can appreciate the need for change.

The new site will allow a link back to this site and all reports and links have likewise been produced on that new site. The link for the newest is www.cedatopic.com and the direct link for the new blog is blog.cedatopic.com

Thanks to everyone whose participation made this process a success.

2006-2007 Topic Ballot

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Stables) — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 23:08:00 +0000

Note the (comments) before each resolution are designed to help interepet the ballot and are not part of the formal topic. This is the recorded ballot from the topic committee meeting. The formal and final ballot will be provided via the balloting procedures as established in the CEDA constitution.

1. (First Amendment)

The United States Supreme Court should curtail the protection provided for free speech by the First Amendment of the United States’ Constitution by overruling one or more of its decisions on obscenity, hate speech, and or campaign finance.

2. (Five cases)

The United States Supreme Court should overrule one or more of the following decisions

Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)
Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942)
U.S. v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974)
Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003)

3. (Seven cases)

The United States Supreme Court should overrule one or more of the following decisions

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)
Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942)
U.S. v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974)
Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003)
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968)
City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997)

4. (Six cases. No Casey)

The United States Supreme Court should overrule one or more of the following decisions

Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942)
U.S. v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974)
Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003)
City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997)
American Booksellers Association v. Hudnut, 475 U.S. 1001 (1986)

5. (Eight cases)

The United States Supreme Court should overrule one or more of the following decisions

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)
Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942)
U.S. v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974)
Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003)
City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997)
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968)
Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976)

6. (Six cases. No Quirin or Terry)

The United States Supreme Court should overrule one or more of the following decisions

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)
U.S. v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974)
Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003)
City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997)
Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976)

7. (Four cases. No Gratz).

The United States Supreme Court should overrule one or more of the following decisions

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)
Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942)
U.S. v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974)

8. (Four cases. No Quirin)

The United States Supreme Court should overrule one or more of the following decisions

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)
U.S. v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974)
Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244 (2003)

Coalition of the list supporters

noreply@blogger.com (Ede) — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 22:10:00 +0000

Coalition of the list Supporters

Dear Debate Community,

When the final slate of topics was announced, it was apparent that first amendment would be what we debate in the fall for a couple of reasons: 1) some, perhaps many, feel that it is the only topic with enough limits; 2) many just don't like the use of "overrule" in the other topics; 3) it is the only area topic competing against 7 area topics, which means the most likely outcome is that a 1/3 to ½ of the community votes for first amendment as their #1 choice, and no one list topic generates more than 1/5 of the vote. Now, given the criticisms coming out, perhaps that is not the case, but the lone area topic is at a huge strategic advantage. Ironically, as someone who supported areas, the process created strange bedfellows the way it played out. I think the lists were made with broad strokes to allow for a lot of flexibilty. Ironically, this is the major criticism of the list topics. I strongly feel that the committee created a series of lists that have much pedagogical value in terms of diversity of case options, than the free speech topic. And finally, I don't agree that the stem for the lists are as open-ended as others do. But that is not here nor there. If you are interested in voting for a list as your #1 topic, please continue.

The last three years, whatever topic had the overall most number of #1 votes, won. 93 total ballots cast last year with pressure getting 29 first round first place votes, with 21 the next highest. The year before that, there were 95 total ballots, with the winning topic receiving 46 followed by 19, and in 2003-4, there were 75 ballots cast, and the winning Europe list had 31 first round first place ballots, with second place having 22.

If your school is a list supporter, and I concede that for many it is too early to make that call (depending on how much investigation the school wants to do or the inclusiveness of the decision making process at the school), I call on those in favor of any list to participate in a coalition-building process to give a list topic a fighting chance to win.

I propose this: If you support any of the lists, let's have a discussion on the blog until a deadline date, perhaps July 1st or even a little later. The goal of the discussion is to create some consensus for what order we think the lists should be voted in. From there let's have our own vote amongst the supporters of a list. We each agree to support the results of that voting as a group and vote accordingly. And we all cast our individual ballot as part of a collective voting block.

If we got 48 willing schools to participate, we could assure that a list topic was likely victorious. I suspect we can't get that many, but we should strive to maximize our coalition. Without any external effort on this, a relatively small minority of first amendment #1 votes will likely win.

I will post this note to edebate, CEDA-L, and the Blog. Please let me know if you are interested. I will create and defend a rank order of the lists to start the discussion, only on the blog. I hope people see the strategic necessity to think of this as one list versus one area, and not 8 separate topics. Thanks for reading.

Ede "Doc" Warner

The First Amentment topic on the ballot

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Stables) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:50:00 +0000

The United States Supreme Court should curtail the protection provided for free speech by the First Amendment of the United States’ Constitution by overruling one or more of its decisions on obscenity, hate speech, and or campaign finance.

vote it down

noreply@blogger.com (Ede) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:45:00 +0000

clean up the ballot you have.

Slate of lists

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Stables) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:39:00 +0000

A discussed stem wording is:

The United States Supreme Court should overrule one or more of the following decisions

(Code numbers will be included)

List # 1:

Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)
Ex parte Quirin (1942)
U.S. v. Morrison (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)

List #2:

Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)
Ex parte Quirin (1942)
U.S. v. Morrison (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)
Terry v. Ohio (1968)
City of Boerne v. Flores (1997)

List #3:

Ex parte Quirin (1942)
U.S. v. Morrison (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)
City of Boerne v. Flores (1997)
American Booksellers v. Hudnut (1986)

List 4

Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)
Ex parte Quirin (1942)
U.S. v. Morrison (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)
City of Boerne v. Flores (1997)
Terry v. Ohio (1968)
Gregg v. Georgia (1976)

List 5

Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)
U.S. v. Morrison (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)
City of Boerne v. Flores (1997)
Gregg v. Georgia (1976)

List #6

Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)
Ex parte Quirin (1942)
U.S. v. Morrison (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley (1974)

List #7

Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)
U.S. v. Morrison (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)

My suggestion

noreply@blogger.com (Ede) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:32:00 +0000

Put first amendment off.
Create three topics of 4.
One without Casey.
One without Milliken and Gratz.
One without Quilin.

That's fair and gives everyone an equal chance to win.

The contradiction

noreply@blogger.com (Ede) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:22:00 +0000

I be a lot more comfortable about this if the race-equal protection area topic makes it on, but with the time constraints, I suspect that won't happen.

I will say this, you can't have it both ways: if Milliken and Gratz both access "race", why are they that expansive? Your discussion is proving their different pedagogical value?

This solution to the problem is a poor quick-fix based on time. The better solution is to fix the wording.

That the Supreme Court should increase constitutional protection to:

the right to an abortion by overruling the Casey decision;limit presidential war powers by overruling Quirin decision;
reduce violence against women by overruling Morrison decision;
increase state affirmative action by overruling Gratz decision;
increase desegregation in education by overruling Milliken.

Revisiting the list

noreply@blogger.com (Ede) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:46:00 +0000

That the Supreme Court should do one or more of the following:

increase protection for the right to an abortion by overruling Casey;
reduce protection for presidential war powers by overruling Quirin;
increase protection for violence against women by overruling Morrison;
increase protection in affirmative action by overruling Gratz;
increase Congressional protection for religious freedom by overruling Boerne;
and/or
increasing protection against search and seizure by overruling Terry.

First Amendment Resolution Will be on the ballot

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Stables) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:40:00 +0000

It recieved sustantial support from at least seven members of the committee.

Overrules - Need to narrow the mechanism

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Stables) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:40:00 +0000

Open thread- discuss.

Updated working first amendment resolution

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Stables) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:00:00 +0000

The United States Supreme Court should curtail the protection provided for free speech by the United States Constitution’s First Amendment’s protection by overruling one or more of its decisions on obscenity, hate speech, and or campaign finance.

An alternative areas resolution - equal protection

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 17:13:00 +0000

An alternative areas resolution -- Equal Protection (I wrote about this on the blog - see my very first blog post)

The resolution would say:

The United States Supreme Court should strengthen the constitutional protection against race discrimination by overruling one of its decisions which held that a government action/law/statute did not violate the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.
Cases would include: Milliken v. Bradley (school desegregation), Washington v. Davis (held that policy with disparate impact on blacks was not unconstitutional without evidence of discriminatory intent), Gratz (affirmative action), Shaw v. Reno (racial gerrymandering),, Palmer v. Thompson (holding that city's decision to close all public swimming pools rather than integrate them did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because the city closed all swimming pools "equally").

This topic would be great and you are already familiar with most of the key cases because they tend to be the "landmark" cases in constitutional law. And this would appease the fear that a bunch of list resolutions plus one areas resolution (1st amendment) would inevitably result in a 1st amendment topic.

Updated working first amendment resolution

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Stables) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 17:01:00 +0000

The USSC should limit the first amendment’s protection of free speech by overruling one or more of its decisions in the area of ______

First Amendment Area Resolution

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Stables) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 15:54:00 +0000

Under discussion. There are some wording variations to come, but this is what was discussed yesterday.

(Working wording) - The United States Supreme Court should overrule one or more of its controlling decisions that struck down a statute on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment's protection of free speech.

Decision on the the First Amendment vs. Ntl Security resolution

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Stables) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 15:39:00 +0000

The committee voted 8-1 against including the topic on the ballot. Darren Elliot voted to include it on the topic.

Decision on the plenary power option

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Stables) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 15:37:00 +0000

Despite great work by Lindsay, the committee unanimously decided to not included it on the slate of topics.

It should be noted that the emphasis on foreign policy and national security was a substantial concern for the committee.

Agenda for Day 3

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Stables) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 15:05:00 +0000

1. Area Topics
First Amentment
Race
Education
Religious Freedom

2. Mahoney - update on 1A vs. Ntl Sec

3. Harrison - Plenary Power

4. Adjust size of the lists (shrink)

5. Can the affirmative specify the grounds for overrule?

From Dallas

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 15:03:00 +0000

I apologize for coming to this discussion late, but I only returned from
abroad yesterday.

I would like to make an appeal for the inclusion of one or more "area"
topics. I think freedom of religion would be a good one, although I don't
think it would necessarily be the best, and it certainly is not the only
possibility.

I propose: Resolved: That the USSC should substantially change the law of
First Amendment religious freedom by overruling one of more of its
decisions regarding establishment or free exercise of religion.

This is not too broad. There will be some cases you won't predict right
now, but there won't be a huge number, and by the end of October,
everybody will know what nearly all of them are.

This is fresh. We have never debated religion before, and while people
are very interested in the subject and the controversies, most college
students know little about the cases and controversies involved.

There is INEVITABLY strong negative ground. ANY rule that limits
establishment, liberally construed, will in some way limit free exercise.
And any enshrining of a right to worship smacks of establishment. I have
not done any research lately, but my memory from law school is that there
was not a single "easy" case on religion.

I believe the topic should include both free exercise and establishment,
and I admit this is "bidirectional." That's good. It makes the negative
learn about both sides of the issues, so they have to have at least two
generics. Also, it lets affs choose their side; if Liberty feels
strongly that free exercise should triumph, they can support that. If
Pagan U wants to say the government should get out of the business of
protecting religious exercise in the labor market, they can support that.
What would be included? Relying merely on memory, with no current
reading, I would say that there would be a lot of education cases
(parochial school support, vouchers, etc,) a lot of labor market
accommodation cases, and a smattering of other interesting issues.
Big Love (polygamy) comes to mind. Creeches on public property. The Ten
Commandments in Courtrooms. In God We Trust on the Money. The Pledge of
Allegiance case. Prayer in public schools. Peyote(!)

As I say, I'm sure there will be surprises, cases I can't remember and you
won't discover in a day. But that is the fun of a topic developing over
time. And there just are not that many cases, this really can't get out
of control.

One more thing. I know the topic committee thinks that it can say the
word "overrule" and name a famous case and know what the debate will be
about. This is TRAGICALLY misguided, as Ms. Harrison has so vividly
illustrated. My topic COMPELS the aff to change the law of religious
freedom, inevitably creating strong and predictable negative ground. I
GUARANTEE I can write affs on your list topics that you have never heard
of and won't find predictable or useful or manageable with your generics.
Respectfully,

dp

Strength of the Unifying Mechanism

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 13:49:00 +0000

Europe -- no unifying mechanism. Disparate areas. Bad

China -- Strong unifying mechanism. Disparate areas. Maybe "too easy" to be neg. If we think of the unifying mechanism as a way to protect negative ground on a scale of 1 to 10, the pressure mechanism may have been an 11 (or higher). Very difficult to defend pressure vis-a-vis engagement

Courts. Unifying mechanism. Disparate areas.

The question is how strong is the mechanism and does it weigh in to heavily for one side.

Reason it is weak: Ryan has steadfastly defended the Court Legitimacy and Hollow Hope DAs, but you obviously can't run both at the same time and these strategies have generally taken a beating from individuals who have debated the topics. Anyone want to post their win-loss record going for Stare Decisis? What happens if the Court does overrule a case in the Fall or makes a relatively liberal decision?

Reason it is strong: The Court doesn't usually overrule things -- On the neg people will find ways to solve the harms of these cases, and probably even their legal precedents, without overruling them. Perhaps they will just run the distinguish counterplan or even be more sophisticated. This is my general understanding as a non-lawyer and every lawyer, law professor, and law student who has commented on this has made this point without exception from the very beginning and it hasn't been answered.

So, the mechanism may be either incedibly weak or incredibly strong in its ability to provide generic negative ground. AT BEST, we don't know.

Potentially debating many disparate areas and relying on a mechanism that may be incredibly strong or incredibly week seems problematic.

How would people rate the mechanism as a means to protect negative ground on a scale to 1 to 10?

noreply@blogger.com (Stefan) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 13:47:00 +0000

Does anyone think it may be useful to create a list where we know there is a strong defense of the need to overrule? Perhaps a topic where we have the best 5 or 6 six solvency cards that say why it really needs to be overruled

Another swipe has been taken at the ability of the affirmative to generally defend the need to overrule in

On Lists and Areas

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 13:42:00 +0000

Although this may contradict Ede's call to the committee (and I hate to disagree with Ede), I'd like to make another call for the committee to work on a plenary powers or other "areas" resolution, in part based on Paul's comments below and in part based on what I have heard over the past two days. I apologize in advance for the length - I had not a lot of time to edit.

First, Paul is correct when he states that the Court almost never directly states that X case is overruled. It overrules its precedents by announcing new rules that displace the old ones. As an example -- in Lawrence, the Supreme Court announces that there is a privacy interest in adult, consensual, private sexual conduct, thereby overruling Bowers. The Supreme Court chose to overrule Bowers in that way, but it could have done so in an infinite number of ways -- by announcing a completely new test for fundamental rights, by ruling on the basis of equal protection (which O'Connor did in her concurrence), by ruling on the basis of the first amendment right to expressive association (which many law review scholars advocated), by ruling on the basis of the privileges and immunities clause (which an amicus brief advocated), by ruling that the regulation of sexuality is outside the state's police powers (which the CATO institute advocated), etc. I think this is what the various members of the topic committee understand when they say the topic will be "too big." Each precedent may be overruled in a tremendously large number of ways.

Because of this, I see this year headed in a dangerous direction if the resolution simply requires the Aff to overrule a case --there are very, very, very few advocates there are for the simple overruling of Supreme Court precedent without advocating a new rule to displace the old (very, very, very few - pretty much just conservative crackpots discussing the need to "overrule Roe"). Once the community realizes this, I foresee Affirmatives that do a huge, wide range of things in very disparate areas of the law (examples -- if Glucksberg or Casey is included -- plan: rule that gays have a fundamental right to marry/kids have a right to education/etc., thereby overruling the test used in Glucksberg and Casey holding that fundamental rights must be deeply rooted in the concept of ordered liberty). Affirmatives will overrule the cases on your "list" resolutions by doing virtually anything that they want.

You are listing cases that come from a huge range of areas of the law -- your smallest resolution includes these:
Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)
Ex parte Quirin (1942)
U.S. v. Morrison (2000)
Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)

Casey involves substantive due process - the test for what constitutes a fundamental right. This means one could overrule Casey by doing ALMOST ANYTHING that announces a new fundamental right by displacing the Casey test.

Ex parte Quirin involves the war powers of the president - one could overrule Quirin by limiting the war powers of the president or by announcing a new test for the judicial evaluation of those powers (displacing that announced in Quirin) or by announcing that questions concerning the president's war powers are now to be considered "political questions" from which the court will now abstain, etc.

Morrison involves both Congress's commerce power and its enforcement powers under section 5 of the 14th amendment. Since Congress has not passed the VAWA again, the Court could only overrule Morrison by announcing new tests for the evaluation of the scope of Congress's commerce power or its section 5 authority. In other words, the Court could "overrule" Morrison by announcing almost any piece of Congressional legislation constitutional under the 14th amendment or the interstate commerce clause. This is particularly dangerous since the Negative will need to be prepared to debate both "Court affirms legislation" and "Court strikes down legislation" Affs.

Milliken involves the authority of courts to order injunctive relief. Yes, the case involved a desegregation order, but you won't find authors advocating that the Supreme Court overrule Milliken by approving the plan that was ordered in effect in Detroit because no such plan exists today to approve - what you will find are any number of authors who advocate enlarging the authority of the courts to order various remedies, thereby overruling the central holding of Milliken that the plan in effect was impermissible. There are also, of course, the racial aspects of Milliken, which held that busing remedies could extend across district lines only where there was actual evidence that multiple districts had deliberately engaged in a policy of segregation. Well, you could overrule Milliken by holding that there was, in fact, evidence of intentional segregation in Detroit (thereby overruling the main factual holding of the case, but leaving the legal rule the same).

Finally, Gratz involves the evaluation of an affirmative action plan under the equal protection clause. This is another hugely bidirectional case -- you could overrule Gratz by holding that diversity is not a compelling state interest OR by holding that affirmative action plans should not be subject to strict scrutiny because they remedy racial discrimination. There are solvency advocates for doing so in a variety of ways.

I hope I have given you a sense of how huge the topic could get. I think the community seriously needs to consider the scope of the resolution and needs to consider putting some limited "areas" resolutions on the ballot.

I'll advocate here for plenary powers since I genuinely think it would be a much more limited topic than the "lists" resolutions presently under consideration. I also will explain why I think it is wholly faithful to the "Supreme Court overrule" topic the community elected.

As I have previously stated, the plenary power doctrine is wholly the creation of the Supreme Court. For the court to rule that the powers of the Executive or Congress are not plenary IS an overruling of court precedent. Thus, the committee could easily draft a plenary powers resolution that is faithful to the community's election of a "Sup Ct overrule" topic but that does not include the actual word "overrule."

I still say the best resolution for a plenary powers topic -- one that is limited and one that has substantial numbers of solvency advocates and one that excludes Indians -- is this one:
The United States Supreme Court should substantially limit the plenary power of the Executive or Congress in one or more of the following areas of the law: immigration, foreign affairs, public lands.

I will try to be clear about why I think this resolution is faithful to the "Supreme Court overrule" topic in case I have not been in the past. Because the Supreme Court created the doctrine of plenary powers, for the Court to now limit those powers is PRECISELY the kind of overruling of Court precedent that the legal literature is talking about when it discusses "overrule." Plus, I don't understand why the plans under a plenary powers resolution would be any more about "overrule" than the plans I have given as examples for the "lists" topic above. A plan advocating a new fundamental right (and thereby overruling Casey) doesn't "overrule" precedent any more than a plan that limits the Executive or Congress's plenary powers -- in fact, it is probably less faithful to the "overrule" topic.

I think an areas resolution is superior because the Negative will at least know the direction the Aff must go. The Negative can still use all of its "overrule" evidence (though, as Josh Zive states in his comments, the hollow hope and other courts generics are not nearly as strategically beneficial as the case debates and PICs on a courts topic -- there just aren't a huge number of Negative authors discussing why overruling precedent, in itself is bad -- just ask anyone who has debated Korematsu or Bowers whether those strategies were ever successful -- i mean, "stare decisis good" is just not a great debate argument -- do you really want every round to be "CP - do the Aff but don't overrule a case, net benefit is stare decisis"????). Debates will still be about whether the Court should backtrack from a doctrine that it created. And the community will learn a ton about a key area or two of the law -- the area that is, in fact, THE legal hot topic in a post-9/11 world. I do think a first amendment resolution would be good as well, requiring the Court to overrule one of its first amendment precedents. At least in such a resolution, the area of the law is singular and well-defined. I think you could also solve some of the problem by adding in a directional limiting phrase (requiring the Aff to rule in a particular way and not just simply to "overrule" a case).

If you have questions about this, I'm happy to talk with the topic committee today - my work number is 305-579-4414. I'm not trying to scare anyone - I just have thought about it a lot (while watching the Mavs kick total ass last night) and felt obligated to share those thoughts...I love that the community is debating a legal topic and don't want it to be another 15 years until it happens again.

Peace.

Lindsay

Dear Topic Community,

noreply@blogger.com (Ede) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 05:26:00 +0000

We have elected a set of representatives to make a series of difficult decisions for this community. For over three weeks, I've heard a deafening silence in answer to my question: what is the role of the topic committee? My interpretation of that silence was a community interested in the topic committee producing a series of the "best" topics, using their experiences and knowledge to produce those topic. The goal of the committee is not the creation of representative "community choices", in other words, is not to represent all possible interests in a democratic manner. In fact, the limiting process of topic construction in many ways does the opposite, it limits out a lot of interests so we can have engaged focused and developed discussion on a few interests. And I believe that the committee has done just that in the set of list topics it has created over the last two days. At the same time, the committee has created a series of lists that allow for predictable narrow debates, while also allowing a host of different areas as possible case consideration.

Earlier discussions suggest that the committee wants students to have legal topic debates in their careers, and wants healthy and relatively equal discussion of both domestic and foreign policy concerns. Our last three topics have had been decidedly unbalanced in favor of foreign policy interests (energy was as much or more about global impacts as it was domestic impacts).

My request today is that the topic community use their knowledge and experience to vote not to include the free speech/national security topic on the ballot, or any other single area topic. I make this request not because Tim did a poor job making a strong case that this is an interesting, debatable resolution with predictable negative ground. He in fact, did a great job in constructing an interesting, debatable topic. I make this request not because the majority of members of this community lack interest in the area. In fact, I make this request for just the opposite reason: a national security only topic would very likely win.

The committee has worked very hard to protect a wide variety of minority interests, introducing a variety of topics that don't often get debated by this community, in the spirit and promise of the original topic paper written by Galloway. We are on the verge of debating at a minimum: poronography, affirmative action, desegregation in education, executive authority, federalism, and gendered violence with the possibility of adding abortion, the death penalty, religious freedom, and euthansia to that list. We are on the verge of a truly unique season created by this community.

The decision to add a 1st amendment/national security topic is likely a decision to move away from all of that work, the bulk of the committees work over the last six weeks. While all combined, these areas might still be a minority interest in being debated compared to a topic with a strong foreign policy impact interest, but a strong challenging coalition has been built by the committee.

There is a strong pedagogical warrant to preserve this difference, there is a strong political warrant for the community to protect minority interests in this case, and finally there is a strong moral justification to embrace the representative leadership that stands up for minority interests when those interests are in the best interest of the entire community.

I suspect some will argue for the right for the community to have democractic choices, and that the community doesn't have the right to make this call. But remember, there was almost no discussion when I called for the community to discuss the role of the community. To demand a pure democractic process as a response to this would be curious at best and at somewhat hypocritical at the least. Remember, despite a small, vocal minority, there won't be a broad--change a landmark decision-topic on the ballot.

It would have been nice to have this discussion on the front end of the process, as Tim is right, it is hurtful to do the work to later find out it won't be used. At the same time, if a topic that is single focused on a limited area makes the cut and wins, it makes irrelevant the work of a lot of folks.

Finally, if the committee makes the decision to add single area topics at this point, I hope they reconsider the number of topics they put on the ballot. Give the list a fighting chance and put one list on to challenge, for a total of two topics.

If first amendment/national security ends up on the ballot as a single area, I'll be disappointed but I'll live with it. High school recently had many of these debates and this topic will really be a last minute addition in terms of time allocated during the topic meetings. And if national security doesn't make the ballot, I'll buy Tim a drink as I share his frustrations for his work not producing a topic, a place I've been several times. At the end of the day, I respect the difficult choices the committee must make.

Adjourn for the day...

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Stables) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:35:00 +0000

We are breaking for the day. We will return tomorrow at 10:00 am.

Items on the agenda are the first amendment area and the full slate of topics.

Thanks for all of the help. Please let us know what you think.

Size of the topics?

noreply@blogger.com (Gordon Stables) — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:22:00 +0000

Discuss.