I was terrified for my first college debate tournament. I wasn’t exactly new to debate; in high school, I led my debate club for three years. But the pandemic kept my team from participating in the already-sparse local debate circuit, so my actual tournament experience was limited to a single one that I’d attended at Cornell, way back during freshman year. Stepping into the “real” debate world felt daunting and intimidating; I was convinced that everyone else would be judgmental and arrogant, mostly on the basis of stereotypes about “debate bros.” Oh, how wrong I was.
I’m almost ashamed now to admit the extent of my irrational bias. I had completely failed to consider that I didn’t fit into debate stereotypes myself, nor did any of the members of my high school debate club. It’s not that white, cishet “debate bros” don’t exist. In fact, my first debate tournament at Cornell was crawling with them. They are certainly still present on the Northeastern college debate scene, and it’s incredibly satisfying to defeat them when they do pop up. But the college debate community is so much more expansive and diverse than what the popular consciousness reduces it to. In my short time participating in college debate, I’ve met people from across the world and all over the spectra of gender and ethnicity.
When I walked into my first General Assembly (GA in debate speak) in a random auditorium at Boston University, I was struck by the lack of uniformity. I had somewhat expected a room full of blazers, crisp khakis and short haircuts saturated with gel. Instead, I saw people of all genders rocking dresses and heels, unicorn onesies, flowy hippie pants, long curly hair dip-dyed pink and makeup looks that I’d expect to see on the alt-beauty-blogger side of the Internet, not at an academic competition. My conception of what debate was and what debaters looked like was shattered, and I had no choice but to start rebuilding it anew.
We kicked off the tournament with an equity meeting, in which several appointed “equity officers” introduced themselves and presented a flowery pink Canva slideshow about being respectful of others’ pronouns and identities. Again, the overt femininity and casual nature of the entire presentation made it a breath of fresh air compared to my past experiences with austere and pretentious tournament leadership. The equity officers made it clear that they would be available as supporters and advocates throughout the entire tournament in case someone experienced discrimination or harassment of any kind. As I would come to learn, every complaint is taken seriously in this debate community, unlike in many academic settings where reports of sexual harassment and racism are minimized and dismissed.
After the equity briefing was adjourned, we all headed off to our first rounds. The team on the Government side introduced the case they had written, including a list of specific content warnings. I admired their attention to detail and fine attunement to the emotional needs of other debaters; honestly, I wouldn’t have thought to include half of the warnings myself because I still struggle to consider the many lenses through which others view the world. We were then provided the opportunity to anonymously opt out of the case and debate a new one if the subject matter made us too uncomfortable to focus on logic and argumentation. Even the case content was far more creative and interesting than the bland economic and social policy cases I was used to. In my limited debate career, I’ve already heard and argued cases about stealing cows, going on a cruise with one’s grandma and winning the Eurovision song contest, among many others.
With their adoption of content warnings and careful consideration of mental health, the debate community has gracefully established a norm that many educators, even in prestigious and reputable academic institutions, fail to uphold. Too often, when class content is unnecessarily graphic and triggering, students are not forewarned, or, if they are, their only option is to physically remove themselves from the classroom. This not only cuts down on students’ educational time, but robs them of anonymity or discretion, forcing them to disclose their past traumatic experiences to a professor whom they may not yet trust and a whole room of people who may not understand. It leaves them vulnerable to judgment and assumptions on top of the pain of a traumatic memory being brought to the surface. In contrast, I have never once felt judged or ostracized for needing to hear a new case due to triggering content. Debate is an iterative process, and the other team used the experience to improve their existing case by removing unnecessarily graphic details, while still preserving its essence.
College debaters in the Northeast, at least the ones I’m familiar with, treat diversity as a fact of life, so natural it almost fades into the background. They let it arise organically and flourish by creating a truly inclusive environment rather than trying to artificially accomplish “diversity, equity and inclusion” in a performative sense. They accommodate each other’s mental health needs and have clear systems in place to address discrimination and harassment. The rest of the academic world and the world at large has much to learn from this community of young adults.
