HARVARD BIF

The 47th Annual Harvard National Forensics Tournament

We are delighted to invite you to attend the Forty-Seventh annual Harvard National Forensics Tournament, which will be held online on Presidents' Day Weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, & Monday, February 12-15, 2021.

We have several announcements concerning this year’s tournament.
First, this year’s tournament will be conducted online via the classrooms.cloud platform. We look forward to the opportunity to host everyone back in person in Cambridge in 2022. We will continue to use Tabroom.com as the official registration and tournament management site for all events and divisions.

Second, we will continue to offer a Middle School Public Forum division, open to students in the sixth through eighth grades. We will continue to have international breakout elimination rounds in the Junior Varsity Public Forum division. We are adding novice division in policy. We will not be offering Duo Interpretation this year.

Third, all judges will be required to use electronic ballots in all divisions and to judge rounds via the classrooms.cloud zoom platform.

Lastly, JV/Var Public Forum and JV/Var Lincoln-Douglas divisions will begin on Friday, February 12, 2021.

Competition Rules, Procedures, and Eligibility

Due to scheduling conflicts, no student may enter more than one of the following five tournaments.

1. The “Crimson Bearcat” Policy Debate Tournament
Location: On-Line
The policy tournament will be administered by Joe Schatz and the Binghamton Debate team. The tournament will be on line using the classrooms.cloud platform. There will be four divisions, varsity, junior varsity, Novice, and Spanish-language, of two-person, switch-sides, cross-examination debate, on the national topic. We plan to run the divisions concurrently, though we may stagger the start of divisions to improve administrative efficiency. We encourage coaches to enter students in the division that best approximates their skill and experience level, and we leave that judgment up to you. Time limits will be 8-3-5, with eight minutes preparation time per team. In order to maximize opportunities to participate, we must require that all teams have two members: no "mavericks." Ordinarily, students must attend the same school to compete on a team. However, we will accept entries from clubs or other debate organizations provided that the schools represented do not otherwise have a debate team.
Vital Stats: Prelims-- Varsity: 7, Junior Varsity: 7, Novice: 5, Spanish Language: 5. Elims--Double Octafinals in all divisions if possible. Entry Limit: No limits.

2. The Public Forum Debate Tournament
Location: On Line
There will be four divisions of public forum debate – varsity, junior varsity, novice, and middle school – on the February National Speech and Debate Association topic. In the Junior Varsity division, there will be an international schools breakout division in the elimination rounds. To be eligible to participate in the breakout, students must attend a school located outside of the United States and indicate so when entering the tournament. All divisions will use National Speech & Debate Association time format and rules. We encourage coaches to enter students in the division that best approximates their skill and experience level, and we leave that judgment up to you. The novice division is intended for high school students in their first year of competition. The middle school division is intended for students in the sixth through eighth grade.
Vital Stats: Varsity and Junior Varsity: 7 Preliminary Rounds, Clear to Triple Octafinals. We will add a partial quad round if necessary in order to clear all 5-2s up to 128 seeds. Novice and Middle School 5 preliminary rounds, clear to Doubles with at least 75 entries. JV International Schools – Breakout to Quarterfinals. No Entry Limits.

3. The Lincoln-Douglas Debate Tournament
Location: On Line
There will be two divisions, varsity and junior-varsity. Both will use the January-February National Speech and Debate Association topic and time limits. We will utilize a mutual preference judging system for the Varsity division. All judges must post a paradigm on Tabroom.com and must have a high school diploma in order to be qualified to judge in either division.
Vital Stats: Prelims: 7. Elims: Triple-octas in both divisions (top 64). No Entry Limit.

4. The Congressional Debate Tournament
Location: On Line
National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA) rules and procedures determine advancement and placing based upon cumulative ranking by judges. The following NSDA rules pilots will be in effect: (1) debate on each item will be limited to one hour; (2) internet access to retrieve evidence will be allowed; (3) when debate concludes on each legislation, each author/sponsor will give a 90-second final appeal speech – with no questioning – and will be scored as a final addition to their speech, but not count for precedence/recency. Full rules and details are available at: https://www.congressionaldebate.org/harvard-tournament/general-information.
We have made a few adjustments to how the legislative docket and chamber assignments will be handled, in particular, due to the online nature of the tournament, and unpredictability with the competitive field.
Each school's coach may submit one item of student-written legislation on Tabroom.com by Monday, January 11, 2021 (11:59 EDT), only using provided templates. Coaches should review to ensure quality, suitable for substantive debate. When uploaded, legislation must be categorized in one of the following areas:

Commerce (business, banking, finance)
Defense
Education and Health Care
Elections and Government Reform
Energy, Environment, and Scientific Development
Foreign Relations and Aid
Immigration and Border Protection
Justice (including policing, firearms, and drugs)

Legislation will first be assessed (school/student identity withheld) by an independent review panel of alumni and inactive coaches to select a field of bills and resolutions best suited for debate, and distributed as evenly as possible across the topic areas above.

From January 20-24, 2021, registered contestants will be able to vote for their favorite items from among those selected by the review panel. Coaches are responsible for ensuring student accounts are active and attached to their contestants; coaches may not vote. From among the student vote, the highest-rated items will be earmarked for finals, followed by each set of rounds prior. Each round will have three items of legislation assigned, for a total of 21 items, altogether. The lowest-rated items will not make the docket. The complete docket will be released January 27, 2021.
The deadline for Congress entries is January 20, 2021. Fees are set at this time -- no refunds for drops after this date for any reason. Late entries may be admitted after January 20, 2021, but may not have an opportunity to cast votes for the docket.
Chamber assignments will be released sometime on February 12, 2021, adjusting for drops to ensure as balanced a competition as possible, and students are strongly discouraged from communicating with other contestants to negotiate agenda orders ahead of the tournament. With a smaller legislation packet of only three items per session (9 for prelims, collectively), there should not be a need for determining that ahead of time
Vital Stats: Each chamber will have up to 12 contestants each. Prelims: 3 sessions. Octafinals: about 1/3 of the field; a reasonable number of about one-third will break to quarterfinals and semifinals; and 1/3 to 1/2 will break to finals based on overall field size. Top-performing octafinalists in each chamber earn a bid to the TOC, up to 120 students, with an equal number represented from each octafinal chamber.
Entry limit: Schools limited to 35 entries.

5. The Speech Tournament
Location: On Line

The tournament will feature competition in six events:
Pod A

extemporaneous speaking (no foreign/domestic split),
informative speaking.
dramatic interpretation.

Pod B

original oratory,
humorous interpretation,
program oral interpretation,

Students can enter two events provided that they are scheduled in different pods. One pod is: humorous interpretation, program oral interpretation, and original oratory. The other pod is: dramatic interpretation, extemporaneous speaking and informative speaking. National Speech & Debate Association rules will govern all competitions. The individual events tournament director will be prepared to enforce National Speech & Debate Association rules if objections are brought to her attention in a timely manner. Judges will be required to submit ranks and ballots electronically. Elimination rounds will be sectioned by preliminary round seeds to balance out the competition.
Vital Stats: Prelims: 4. Elims: Octafinals (at least top 56 contestants), Double-Octafinals (at least top 98 contestants) for events with more than 300 entries.

General Tournament Rules

Judge Qualifications
All judges provided by schools must be qualified, which at a minimum means a high school diploma. Any complaints about judge qualifications must be addressed to the tournament director prior to or immediately after the competition involved. All tournament directors have been authorized to impose penalties against schools whose judges do not appear for the rounds to which they have been assigned.

Elimination Round Participation
We expect participants in the various tournaments to compete in the elimination rounds. Debaters who choose not to debate rounds for any reason (other than that they are scheduled against another competitor from the same school) will be treated as having forfeited the round. The tournaments will no longer certify “co-champions” in final rounds.

Conduct Policy
The tournament strives to foster an environment promoting inclusivity and respect. The tournament will abide by Harvard College’s policies and procedures for sexual and gender-based harassment and discrimination. The policy is available here. The tournament will also abide by policies governing codes of conduct within the Harvard community, including those prohibiting racial discrimination and harassment. They are available here. Further details about a tournament equity officer will be provided soon.
The tournament also adheres to the NSDA anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policy, reproduced here: Harassment and Discrimination Policy: The National Speech & Debate Association is committed to providing its participants, judges, coaches, and staff the opportunity to pursue excellence in their endeavors. This opportunity can exist only when each member of our community is assured an atmosphere of mutual respect. The NSDA is committed to maintaining an environment that is free from all forms of harassment and discrimination. Accordingly, all forms of harassment and discrimination are prohibited whether committed by participants, judges, coaches, or observers. The NSDA is committed to the enforcement of this policy. Individuals who are found to have violated this policy will be subject to the full range of sanctions, up to and including removal from the tournament premises and prosecution by authorities.

Judging
All judges must be available for all preliminary rounds, the first elimination round, and for one round beyond elimination of the last contestant from the school that the judge represents in the tournament. In Congress and Speech, judges must be available for the entire tournament, including through the final round. All judges must be qualified, which at a minimum means a high school diploma. All schools providing judges for the three debate tournaments with divisions should be flexible as to which division judges are assigned. Schools entering students in junior varsity divisions should expect that some of their judges will be needed to cover junior varsity rounds. First year judges will generally be assigned to the junior varsity division.

HARVARD NATIONAL FORENSICS TOURNAMENT

12-15 February 2021

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