West Point's Ethics Debate Team competed in the National Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl in Chicago, IL. The team, consisting of five debaters, Carolyn Kehn '18 (Sociology), Jessica Boerner'18 (Philosophy), Reed Johnson '19 (Philosophy), Brett Yelverton '18 (Philosophy), and Viviana Gonzalez '20 (Sociology), competed in four rounds against Whitman College, Youngstown State, St. Mary's, and Central Arkansas. The team debated cases about the rights of transgender athletes, the medical treatment of newborns with terminal illnesses, the replacement of workers with robots, the responsibility of pharmaceutical companies for the opioid crisis, and the ethics of political expression in publicly funded art, among other things. The team performed well overall, finishing well above the team from the Naval Academy.
They did this despite the fact that most of the members of the team were competing for the first time this year and after an exhausting couple of days of travel involving flight cancellations and long layovers. The competition gave the new cadets valuable experience that will help make the team even stronger next year. The tournament brought together 37 of the nation's most talented teams to compete for the national title. West Point won the tournament in 2017. This year, the team qualified for the tournament after placing 2nd among 24 teams at the Northeast Regional Competition. This is another example of the department's commitment to developing cadet's ethical reasoning, civic responsibility, and effective communication.