Judge (policy Debate) - Mutual Preference Judging

Mutual Preference Judging

Mutual Preference Judging (MPJ) is a practice adopted at some high school and most college policy debate tournaments. MPJ has each debate team rank each judge in the judging pool, and then assigns judges to rounds such that each team likes the assigned judges equally and prefers them as much as possible. MPJ has been criticized by some in the debate community who feel that it rewards niche styles of debating removes the competitive incentive to adapt one's speech to a diverse range of audiences. Others feel that it is necessary because the immense cleavage in the debate community between what arguments are and are not considered legitimate prevents certain judges from being impartial in "clash of civilization debates". Others have even voiced concerns that MPJ reduces the number of rounds judged by women and minority judges, although there is no definitive evidence supporting this assertion. A common complaint even among those who generally support MPJ is that it results in the "balkanization" of the debate community, producing ideological and stylistic enclaves rather than encouraging moderation and adaptation. Ageism is another frequent complaint, since many believe that MPJ appears to favor younger over older critics (although, again, there is no empirical data concerning this).