USC and UCLA have fostered a long-standing football rivalry, but this year, they’ll also stand as rivals in a debate commemorating the famed debates which transpired between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas 150 years ago. The two schools will debate the question of whether or not the government should be responsible for promoting social justice.

The LA Times reports:

Bruin and Trojan forensics teams will face off at a 150th-anniversary observance of the great debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas next Thursday and Friday at UCLA's Hammer Museum. The schools will argue the topic "Should government be responsible for promoting social justice?" -- a riff on the burning question back in 1858 regarding how far the United States should go to end slavery.

Artist Sharon Hayes, who orchestrated big public performance pieces at the sites of last summer's political conventions, and Lincoln scholar Ronald C. White also will appear at "A House Divided" -- which is being presented by the Hammer and Clockshop, an L.A.-based producer of arts projects in public spaces.

I’m sorry, but this is really a bit of a cop out. We’re in an election year in which it is entirely possible for a black man to become our country’s leader, 150 years after Lincoln, a man inextricably tied to emancipation, ran for president. And the two schools are overlooking race as a debate topic? Wake up and smell the opportunity for timely, heated debate, people!