Discrimination in Debate

Hello debaters! At The Forensic Funnel it is our goal to not only provide speech and debate students with resources but also to keep them up to date with news and events within speech and debate. Today it’s time we talk about events that recently transpired and how that relates to the current state of debate.

What’s the context?

Two days ago, on January 12th, James Fishback the founder of Incubate Debate working along the Mountain State Legal Foundation (MSLF) had filed a federal civil rights complaint against the NSDA for racial discrimination:

You may view James’s argument and evidence by clicking on the above but what does this mean for the NSDA and how should it be handled?

An Analysis of What’s Going On:

In simple terms, a federal civil rights complaint is a legal action filed by an individual or group against a person or entity, alleging that their constitutional or federally protected rights have been violated. (In this case discrimination against protected characteristics).

Here's how it generally works:

The person who believes their rights or the rights of others have been violated files a complaint in a federal court. This document outlines the facts of the case, the alleged violations, and the compensation sought. The accused party is then notified of the complaint and has the opportunity to respond. They may admit or deny the allegations and present their own arguments. Beyond that you have the discovery, pre-trial proceedings, and if the case isn’t resolved through settlement or dismissal then a trial is held.

We have yet to see the NSDA’s response but here is some input I’ve collected so far:

Examining the Evidence:

Again, we encourage debaters to do their due diligence and look into this themselves more in-depth to decide what to advocate for, but the bottom line is that racial discrimination is wrong.

We will clarify however that the video used within James’s tweet is a round from the TOC and not a national final round from the NSDA.

The Tournament of Champions (TOC) operates independently of the National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA). Both entities are involved in the realm of speech and debate, but they are distinct organizations with separate functions.

The NSDA is a national organization that supports and promotes speech and debate activities in schools.

The TOC, on the other hand, is a separate and prestigious invitational debate tournament. It is not directly organized or governed by the NSDA.

The NSDA within in its judge training Encourages judges to be impartial and discourages letting their views on a topic or belief about the best response to an argument influence their decision. The NSDA also makes it clear that they want to promote inclusivity and make debate something that can be done by all students. The NSDA can only do so much to control judges with hundreds of high schools and middle schools on board along with parent judging being widespread it’s hard to control what judges do and do not do; still, with that being said racial discrimination is wrong and has no place in debate.

That’s as far as our input will go debaters. Feel free to decide the best course of action to resolve racial discrimination by judges within this activity.

Happy Debating,

The Forensic Funnel Team