PBSC student Deondre Perkins wins College’s Grand Debate competition

Palm Beach State College student Deondre Perkins was declared the winner of the College’s Grand Debate competition, held Thursday, Oct. 9 at the Lake Worth campus. 

PBSC students Catalina Galatan and Olivia Kenyon placed second and third, respectively.  

Perkins and Galatan will go on to represent PBSC at the statewide Grand Debate, hosted by the Institute for Strategic Policy Solutions at St. Petersburg College on Thursday, Nov. 6. 

The competition will bring together top student debaters from across the Florida College System. Participants will compete for cash prizes of $1,200 for first place, $500 for second place and $250 for third place. Kenyon will serve as an alternate if either finalist is unable to compete. 

Seventeen PBSC students competed for spots on the College’s Grand Debate team. Participants debated the pros and cons of censoring social media platforms. 

Perkins argued in favor of censorship. “With government mandated censorship, the government would be able to safeguard vulnerable patrons from being taken advantage of and also from the clutches of criminality,” he said during the debate. 

Galatan, who served as an alternate at last year’s Grand Debate, took the opposing stance. “If we have censorship and if we have one industry standard amongst all social media platforms this could be very detrimental to the entirety of society, not just the United States. This threatens the free speech and expression and diversity that we have on social media today,” she said.

The competition was judged by a panel of community leaders and experts, including Allan Kaulbach, mayor of the city of Atlantis; Rachel Manzi, PBSC associate professor of speech; Bob Nelson, CEO of the Venture Mentoring Team; Betty C. Resch, mayor of the city of Lake Worth Beach and Yenvy Truong, managing partner at Authentifly. 

Political Science Professor Dr. Kevin Coakley served as the debate coach and oversaw the event. “I’m very proud of all my students. They did a tremendous job seeing most of them have never competed and were not comfortable speaking in front of groups of people,” Coakley said. “That's one of the biggest fears to overcome and every one of these students showed that they have what it takes.” 

Read more about the upcoming statewide debate