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Contention One is A Bridge

A. In the US, there is a distinct lack of diversity in debate, at both the college and high school
levels. (Particularly at the college level.) We still have a long way to go.

Harris '13 [Scott Harris, coach of the University of Kansas debate team, and judge for the NDT Finals round in which Emporia State beat Northwestern
University. This Ballot is an 11-page explanation of Harris' decision to select Emporia over Northwestern in a debate where Debate as a Home was the central topic.]

This ballot believes however that there are many ways in which the debate home has a long way to go and
many issues to work on. Participation numbers for minorities are still too low in debate. We also have significant
gender problems in debate that seem to be invisible and unacknowledged. Last year I did not even notice that my
team was the only team competing at the NDT composed of two females. This year there were only four such teams.
This year 34 of the 156 [NDT] competitors were female. From 1947 until 2013 I believe the percent of female
participants have ranged from 14-24%. This year it was 22%. Given that women make up 57% of the collegiate
student population those numbers seem incredibly consistently low. The number of women and minorities in the
judging pool and coaching ranks are way too low. The diversity of the judges in the elimination round pool is too
low. This ballot does not purport to know the answer to these problems but the community needs to continue to work
on making opportunities in debate broader than they have been to this point. I do not tend to believe that the key to
participation lies in letting people say whatever they want in debates. I think the answer lies in more minority
scholarships and more connections between the collegiate community and urban debate leagues that result in
opportunities to attend college.

B. The Emporia-Northwestern round at the NDT was history. Not because of the fact that it was
the first time a team has won both the NDT and CEDA, but because it brought up the argument
against performance and policy. Northwestern's choice to focus primarily on topicality was a
poor strategic choice, but an interesting political choice. The argument of debate the rez, or
don't debate has become the supreme implication of the argument against performance.
Harris '13 [Scott Harris, coach of the University of Kansas debate team, and judge for the NDT Finals round in which Emporia State beat Northwestern University.
This Ballot is an 11-page explanation of Harris' decision to select Emporia over Northwestern in a debate where Debate as a Home was the central topic.]

The negative argument is based on the claim that all debates must be oriented around the pursuit of government policy as
advocated by the resolution. The principle warrant for this claim is based on the idea that policy debate about government
action is good. Northwestern clearly wins that traditional policy debate is valuable in its production of trained advocates on
policy questions. Emporias argument in the 1AR and 2AR is that traditional policy debate is good for those who can make
use of those skills but that there should also be a space for individuals whose needs are to performatively challenge
oppressive structures in their everyday lives. The affirmative advocacy is for the both/and or in the affirmatives words
the and, and, and. The negative vision creates a world of forced choiceof debate as an either orof debate the
resolution or dont debate. The affirmative model advocates a model of debate that captures the advantages of political
debate and the advantages of socially inclusive sites of performance that allow the excluded to speak.










Contention Two is A House Divided

Debate has run into a severe problem. The debate home has begun to endure scathing (and slightly racist)
criticism from the outside, attacking the legitimacy of those we ought to protect. Meanwhile, those of us who are
already in the debate home are preparing for a war. A war among ourselves, in which policy schools reject the
discourse or performance schools simply by labeling them as performance. The performance schools attack policy
by calling them ignorant to the plight of the underrepresented. This is no home. This is a house divided, too busy
fighting to understand that acceptance is a key tenet to any community. Especially so in one so critical as debate.

Bickering happens, but the brunt of the critique started to rumble with the win of Emporia State at 2013's
NDT. Naturally, this is why the affirmative uses the winning ballot as evidence. It is not to prove a point, but to offer
an advocate to the alternative to the current state of existence within the home from one who has seen (and
understood) both sides of the fight. Kansas is heavily policy, and yet a policy coach with a policy mentality and a
policy-maker paradigm voted the best advocacy team over the best policy team at the NDT. The ballot, in this team's
estimation, is the judge's affirmation that the policy side of the home may very well accept the socially (but still
academically supported) constructed cases of the advocacy side of the home. The ballot, in this team's estimation, was
and is a bridge.

However, problems still exist.

Firstly, let's examine the first few shots from the outside in this war against
non-traditional debate. First up, a pretty non-sensical argument about the death of
debate. Here's a pretty weird rant about the death of standards being applied to
debate.

That's Hinderaker '14
[http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/04/the-war-on-standards-comes-to-college-debate.php inb4 That's a blog! Yep. I know. It's also a public statement
against our home.]

It sounds as though academic debating has come to an end. Debating is all about logic, and what these folks are doing is not
logical. In some instances, new-style participants reject the proposition that they are supposed to be debating:

It is hard to believe that such tired cliches could win anything, but when you abandon normal standards of judgment, I
suppose anything is possible.
The assertion that the framework of collegiate debate has historically privileged straight, white, middle-class students is
puzzling. By privileged, the writer apparently means that these are the people who have been good at it. Historically, most
college students have of course been white and middle-class, but so what?
The lights of our culture are going out, one after another, under the attacks of the know-nothings. This one is a relatively
small loss, perhaps, but it hits close to home for Paul and me.
PAUL ADDS: The subtext here is the same as the subtext for much of the war on standards. College debating, it seems, has
been radically transformed in ways that make it easier for African-Americans to succeed at it.
As for the notion of privilege, it is now clear that the debaters of our era were privileged in a limited but important sense.
We were required to take the activity seriously and to meet high standards in order to succeed. For example, we did not
have the privilege of ignoring the time limits on speeches, much less of blowing them off with obscenities. We took this for
granted at the time, but it turns out to have been a privilege.
We were also privileged to be judged by adults who held us to knowable standards, and we were privileged to debate
serious opponents. Not all of our opponents fit this description, but at least we could count on them not to break into song or
inject their alleged personal stories into the proceedings.
I think John would agree that our efforts to meet the standards applicable to debating during our era helped us later on to
meet the standards applicable to successfully litigating law suits. Will meeting the standards, if any, that apply to debating
as performed by the showmen whose exploits are described above help them succeed in any serious profession outside of
the entertainment industry? Will meeting these standards help them become serious adults?

Anyone who is like me would respond with something along the lines of What? This
person clearly does not understand, and would rather reject than to learn. Traditional debate
isn't making things easier. It's a way for people at a disadvantage to competitively cheat the
system, even for a short time.

Look at University Prep DK in their win against Glenbrook North DK. GBN ran a Capitalism K
and framework on UP. They eventually went for the argument that non-traditional debate wasn't
real, and that it subverts policy. What does the judge say? Should have gone for Cap. A
traditional position. We still have a long way to go, but first we have to fix the disparity among
ourselves before dealing with the war outside.

Which leads to my next point: The war on the inside. Let's look at the accounts of Jessica
Kraft's article on the CEDA 2014 championship and the general response to non-traditional
debate.


Kraft '14
[http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/04/traditional-college-debate-white-privilege/360746/ Jessica Kraft, someone who has never debated policy,
and did not seem to understand the CEDA 2014 final round at all. Seriously, she implies that no evidence was read.]

But other teams who have prepared for a traditional policy debate are frustrated when they encounter a meta-debate,
or an alternative stylistic approach in competition. These teams say that the pedagogical goals of policy debate are not being
metand are even being undermined. Aaron Hardy, who coaches debate at Northwestern University, is concerned about
where the field is headed. We end up with a large percentage of debates being devoted to arguing about the rules, rather
than anything substantive, he wrote on a CEDA message board last fall.

Critics of the new approach allege that students dont necessarily have to develop high-level research skills or marshal
evidence from published scholarship. They also might not need to have the intellectual acuity required for arguing both
sides of a resolution. These skillstogether with a non-confrontational presentation styleare considered crucial for
success in fields like law and business.

Hardy and others are also disappointed with what they perceive as a lack of civility and decorum at recent competitions, and
believe that the alternative-style debaters have contributed to this environment. Judges have been very angry, coaches have
screamed and yelled. People have given profanity-laced tirades, thrown furniture, and both sides of the ideological divide
have used racial slurs, he said.

To counter this trend, Hardy and his allies want to create a policy only space in which traditional standards for debate will
be enforced. However, this is nearly impossible to do within the two major debate associations, CEDA and the National
Debate Tournament (NDT), as they are governed by participants and have few conduct enforcement mechanisms. For
instance, while CEDA and NDTs institutional anti-harassment policy would normally prohibit the term nigga as it was
used at the recent Indiana University tournament finals, none of the judges penalized the competitors that used it. In fact,
those debaters took home prizes.

Let's look at the implications here. The response to minorities running advocacy to win was to segregate
them. Not along racial lines. No. They were segregated by style. Debate seems to be afraid of change. Non-
traditional debate isn't new. But it was only fine until it started winning. And winning. And winning more.
Then came this idea. However, the argument is that these kids are not using evidence. Listen closely to the
Oklahoma-Towson round. Listen to the Emporia-N'Western round. There is indeed evidence. Non-
traditional debaters still use evidence. In fact, Frank B. Wilderson is a favorite among performance
debaters, and cards are very much in use.

Third is... Well, anyone who followed the CEDA backlash should cringe when they hear this. The
third argument shouldn't need much explanation. Reddit. Yep. That was a huge cluster of failure
that made us all look bad. (Shoutout to Cross-X forums' Dancon25 for trying.)

Comment 1: It frightens me that this shit is leaking into real life. Not just normal, everyday person-to-person debates,
either, this is a debate tournament.
The idea that feels over reals and "don't challenge me or you're racist" is moving into the public forum and academic-level
things like this seems to me to be, dare I say... problematic.

Comment 2: I can see it now... In the far distant future, if you enter into a debate contest as a white person, you'll be
immediately disqualified. Next round is two black people debating one another. Of course, when I say debate I really mean
that they provide medical reports on who has more melanin in their skin, because as we all know, since the early 2000's
debate stopped being about logic, and instead turned into a privilege checking contest. PoC with lighter skin now have a
disadvantage after the debate in 2015, when a young African American threw out light-skinned privilege as a way of
discrediting his opponents points. Later on, we start tracing PoC's lineage to the most oppressed tribes in Africa, and then
the greatest debater (read blackest, most disabled, genderfluid alive) is found, made Transruler, and all white CEOs that
remain in America are sent to prison.

Comment 3: I feel like almost every single person in this thread is operating on really flawed assumptions about what
debate is like, and they're frequently wrong on almost literally everything about it, including (most disappointingly) what
actually happened in the CEDA finals round between Towson and Oklahoma University's teams.

So who actually is trying to save the debate community? That third comment is
Dancon25, who swung until the bitter end trying to get people to actually watch the
debate instead of judging it with no knowledge. This is what a better home looks like. This
is what the affirmative was made for. And, quite frankly, this leads to our Role of the
Ballot.

The Role of the Ballot is to vote for whoever provides the best home for others. The ROB is a
complete expectations wipe, and should be voted on before anything else.























My advocacy is this: The debate home ought to be expanded, and we
must affirm the importance of diversity in the debate home and accept
the community 'other.' Otherwise, we face a home divided among itself.
Before any resolution can be agreed upon in an arbitrary fashion that
does not actually affect the world, one must affirm that all discourse is
created equal, regardless of stylistic difference. Until that happens, no
number of topical debates will create a true home.


















Contention Three is United We Stand

Debate can provide benefits to all involved, whether you win or lose. It can provide a community, help
with key academic standards, and provide a voice. But most of all, it can provide a solid home. There's the
Cross-X forums, where policy debaters debate online, trade files, discuss debate topics, and generally have fun.
There's F- Yeah, Policy Debate, a humor page dedicated to the nuances (and annoyances) of Policy Debate. We
interact during rounds where judges are late. We interact with each other after rounds.

There's a reason for this. No expert could possibly give better insight on the community that is debate
than the debaters themselves. They are the ones that make this home worthwhile. They are the ones that make
this plan work. Without debaters, no league could ever succeed. People debate for the intellectual stimulation
and tangible benefits, yes. Debaters stay, however, for the home it provides. Again, This Ballot serves as a
perfect microcosm of the ability of debate to change lives. Sure, there's only the one card. But again, This Ballot
was history. There really is no solvency advocate to say that Accepting perf=bigger home because it's obvious.
If the alternative is

Harris '13

The subject of the debate is about debate as a home. The introductions by each of the debaters and the 1AC are about debate as a home and how much debate and the people in it have meant to each of the participants. I found a
home in debate in the fall of 1972. Debate changed my life. Without debate I dont have any idea where I would be today. I was a painfully
introverted young man growing up. I didnt talk to other people. I did not speak in class. I would do anything to avoid
speaking to an adult. Debate somehow empowered me to stand up and speak in front of other people. My mother could not
believe that I was speaking in public and had to come see it for herself. I grew up with four brothers (and for a while a monkey but the story of JoJo is a story best left untold) in a home that was rich in
love and spiritual guidance but low on finances. My father was a part time Pentecostal minister and part time salesman. My mother was a saint. We were blessed in many ways. They raised five rambunctious boys without health insurance and miraculously we avoided any catastrophes. There was always
some form of food on the table and love in our hearts and church to attend. I wore hand me down clothes from my cousins and my brothers and the older boy next door and went to school and tried to avoid drawing attention to myself. I debated four semesters in high school but had no idea what I was doing.
Debate camp was not a financial option for my family. I was better at oratory than I was at debate. One of the ironic t hings that allowed me to do debate was that the schedule did not conflict with church nights. We had Tuesday/Thursday fall l eague debates so I didnt have to miss Wednesday, Friday and
Sunday church services. Sports were not an option for me because the schedule conflicted with Friday church services. (The fact that I wasnt big enough or good enough for sports might have played a role as well). Its ironic because when I got to college the debate schedule played havoc with the ability to
attend regular church services. Debate is an activity that in the long run conflicts with religion more than any sport ever would have. My brothers might argue that debate was on balance a bad home for me to choose because it drove a wedge between me and my chur ch home. They might be right. In
high school I was greatly influenced by my coach Lynn Donges and colleague Jon Mason. Debating in college was never
really a plan for me. Going to college was not really a plan. I never took the SAT or ACT because college really wasnt
thought of as the normal track in my social cohort. Working on the assembly line or driving a truck like my brothers
seemed like a more likely path. I took vocational classes in High School to learn to do printing. I never learned how to type but instead learned how to set type by hand (a skill that was obsolete by the time I graduated). My father got me a job sweeping out a
Midas Muffler shop after graduation. When the fall came I had grown disillusioned with sweeping up rust and looked into Wayne State University as the only school that would admit me without requiring college admission tests. I initially di dnt find school much more stimulating than the muffler shop.
One day I spotted a sign on campus encouraging people to come to a reception to join the debate or forensics team. The
sign said Richard Nixon debatedyou should to. I decided to go to the reception to look into joining the forensics team.
At the reception one of the members of the squad told me I didnt want to do individual events but should do debate instead.
I did and my life has never been the same. I learned how to debate in college. Two practice rounds every week were
required. My world was rocked by George Ziegelmueller, Jack Kay, Ron Lee, Vince Follert, Mike Wavada, Gerry Cox,
Bill and Pam Benoit, Tuna Snider and other coaches who taught me how to debate, how to breathe without sounding like a
wounded animal, and how to think. It was in debate that I first stayed in a hotel room. Family vacations in the Harris
family involved sleeping in a packed car at a rest area. Debate allowed me to fly on a plane. Debate allowed me to
experience eating in restaurants (although many of my colleagues on the Wayne squad questioned whether Bill Knapps
qualified). I would never have finished college if I had not found debate as a home. My voyage has taken me from Wayne
State to Northwestern to Louisville and finally to Kansas. I did not ever have a plan to make debate the rest of my life it
somehow just happened. I found a home in debate and I have never left. I am very passionate about my belief in the value
of this activity.

A vote for This Affirmative is not only a vote for the plan, but an affirmation of the judge's belief in debate as
a home, and debate's discourse and participation as equal from a stylistic standpoint.

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