Cornell University

After a fantastic weekend of adjudication at the Yale Intervarsity tournament and a chance to catch up with the mud-island migrant community in New England we boarded the bus to Cornell University. Our snug six hour journey to Ithaca, New York was made far more comfortable by stunning views of the Catskill Mountains and good if blurry-eyed conversation with our kind hosts from Cornell. Our first afternoon in Cornell allowed us to get some much needed laundry done and to spend the evening having a great Thai meal with our fantastic hosts Sam Nelson and Alex Just. They were keen to stress (having both been on previous tours) that they wanted to give us some free time to relax and gather our strength after being on the road for a month.

As such our second day in Ithaca allowed us to explore the stunning grounds of the campus. Cornell University is regularly voted as one of the most beautiful campuses in the U.S. situated on a hill the campus provides stunning views of the surrounding autumnal trees and the nearby lakes. We spent our afternoon becoming acquainted with the programmes that Sam runs and took embarked on our first visit to maximum security prison (more on that later). That evening we were asked to give a short talk on our perspectives on the London riots, a subject which both Richard and I felt suitably under-qualified to talk about – nonetheless the gathered students seemed suitably interested to stay and ask some thought provoking questions. Our evening was topped off by a pub quiz with Alex and all the good people at the Telluride House (our kind accommodation hosts). Our collective intellectual efforts were supplemented by plentiful amounts of local beer and free popcorn yet despite receiving bonus points for Ben’s ability to lick his own elbow we only managed a rather mediocre second place.

The following day we were tasked with a number of debates. Our final evening’s debate drew a good crowd to debate whether we should reveal the true horrors of war. Despite our host’s valiant efforts and some keen questions from the audience we scored a narrow victory. However, by far the most affecting experience of our stay and possibly our tour so far was our visit to prison earlier that day. For the past five years Sam has spearheaded a programme which aims to engage young people imprisoned in McCormick detention facility just outside of Ithaca. Our task was to argue that African Americans should not be granted reparations for slavery. The environment and the fact that our audience and opponents were all African American made the case somewhat of an uphill battle. But the debate was good spirited and everyone was willing to ask sharp questions and react to some impressive speeches from the residents.

We left with tremendous admiration for Sam and the relationship both him and his students have developed with the residents of McCormick. Our return journey was one in which few words were exchanged. It was incredibly difficult to square the kinds of crimes these young men had committed with the articulate and intelligent people we had the pleasure of debating against. Even with those crimes in mind (most of which were committed when they were barely in their teens) it seemed such a tremendous waste of life to lock children up for 23 hour hours a day, with little or no social contact and no meaningful stimulation.