by PFDebate LLC on March 21, 2010
The Carolina West NFL District has qualified two Public Forum Debate teams to the NFL National Tournament in Kansas City:
Q: Asheville: Alex Boudreau & Wilson Parker
Q: Myers Park: Tanvika Gupta & Ramy El Kalioby
A: Charlotte Latin: Aashna Desai & Kellen Heniford
Asheville will not be attending, so Charlotte Latin will attend in their place.
by PFDebate LLC on March 21, 2010
Two teams from Mira Loma High School have qualified for the NFL National Tournament in Public Forum Debate from the Capitol Valley NFL District:
Q: Mira Loma: Benjamin Morris & Safeena Mecklai
Q: Mira Loma: Vrinda Agarwal & Justin Lin
A: Granite Bay: Alexander Wagner & Dominic DeMarco
by PFDebate LLC on March 19, 2010
by PFDebate LLC on March 18, 2010
As you will recall, the discussion over the NFL’s practice of accepting money to sponsor (i.e. select) Public Forum Debate topic areas originated with a post by Jonathan Peele and was extended by a response from NFL Executive Director Scott Wunn. Comments continue to be added to those blog posts.
Discussion also continues beyond this blog. On his own blog, Jonathan Peele responded to Mr. Wunn. Mr. Peele has also posted that he has been removed from the topic selection committee and he believes it is because of his dissent. Stefan Bauschard has weighed in at Planet Debate with some solutions for generating better topics. Scott Phillips over at The 3NR is okay with the NFL accepting topic sponsorship money – for Public Forum Debate.
Not much has been said about previous Public Forum Debate topic sponsorships and no one has said how much money was received for those sponsorships. It is clear that the NFL accepted a $150,000 sponsorship from the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation and the foundation was allowed to select the topic areas for February, March, and April.
Despite a request from the NFL to remove reference to the Rupe Foundation in Peele’s original blog post (which we honored), the NFL is now touting its relationship with the foundation. Each Public Forum Debate qualifier to the NFL National Tournament is designated as a Rupe Scholar and receives a plaque. The NFL has also setup a special Web site to provide topic resources for February, March, and April and recognize the Rupe Scholars.
It is not easy to find much information about the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation. Art Rupe appears to have made his money in the recording and oil & gas industries. It should also be noted that in addition to selecting the the public unions topic for April, they also provided a grant to the Cato Institute for a special issue of the Cato Journal:
Dorn in 2010,
James A. Dorn. [Vice President for Academic Affairs, Cato Institute. Editor of the Cato Journal]. “Editor’s Note.” Cato Journal. 30(1). Winter 2010. http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj30n1/ed_note.pdf. Accessed March 12, 2010.
This special issue of the Cato Journal was made possible by a generous grant from the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation. The question posed in this issue — Are Unions Good for America? — has both normative and positive aspects.