On May 5, 2022, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported on a team from Pine-Richland High School in Pennsylvania winning the 21st annual International Public Policy Forum debate competition, sponsored by the Brewer Foundation and New York University.
The Pine-Richland team won a $10,000 grand prize. Pine-Richland’s team is coached by high school teacher Jeff Byko and the team members are Miles Brown, Callie Stoltz, Andrew Ni, Amish Sethi, Tadg Manna and Matthew Farmar.
“After working nine months together in a deep dive on the world economy, we are ecstatic to see our hard work pay off on the international stage,” Sethi said. “While it certainly took a lot of work, the memories we have made along the way are unforgettable.”
The topic for this year’s competition was: “Resolved: On balance, the hegemony of the United States dollar is detrimental to the world economy.”
The team’s coach emphasized the students debaters’ hard work on the topic.
“This championship is such a tremendous accomplishment for these six students,” Byko said. “From writing their cases in the beginning to the eventual oral debates, they consistently worked not only to understand their topic — U.S. dollar hegemony isn’t on the top of most people’s interest lists — but to master it. Their results showed they mastered it better than everyone else,” he said. “I couldn’t be happier for them and more proud of them.”
IPPF founder William A. Brewer III, partner at Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors, praised the IPPF champion team.
“These student debaters impressed the judges with their strong advocacy skills — ultimately winning the title of IPPF World Champion,” Brewer said. “Over the course of seven months, the students demonstrated superior written scholarship and oral advocacy skills in a rigorous test of their academic abilities,” Brewer said. “The results achieved here suggest the promise of bright futures. Congratulations to the team for excelling in a debate involving a complicated public policy issue.”
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