The Equality in Forensics Blog: Creating Real Change

If you’re reading this article, chances are you're involved with the speech and debate community. Whether you’re a coach, alumni, judge, or competitor, you decided to become involved in this activity that offers numerous benefits to those who take advantage of them. According to the Stennis Center for Public Service, “As championed by the National Speech and Debate Association, Speech and Debate provides young people a forum to collaborate with others, think analytically on broader issues that face the world, and develop critical thinking and communication skills.” In short, speech and debate fosters advocacy, collaboration, and analytical reasoning — skills that should be used beyond competition to address real-world issues within our own community.

In speech and debate, the words “relevancy” and “topicality” are often echoed from ballots to even rubrics given to judges. While more common in speech, as topics tend to be more personal given that the performer or speaker typically selects them, the relevance of what we say is an extremely important value that is at the core of speech and debate. Better put, it is not enough for us, as competitors, to research, write and cut, and then perform or give a speech. Rather, the topics we choose to research and write should have a reason to be discussed at that particular point in time. 

As corny as it is, what I’m trying to say here is that our words matter, and the action they inspire, which is largely the point of speech and debate, also matters. As a community, we talk a lot about relevancy and the purpose of what we say in speech and debate itself; but, I think it would also be useful for us to take this message and make it the norm, even outside of the events we compete in. One thing that has proven effective at achieving this is none other than Equality in Forensics’ blog. As Jordyn Rubman, former Blog Editor-in-Chief and Outreach Director for Equality in Forensics tells us, “The blog showcases exactly why speech and debate matters: it creates well spoken, passionate students who are willing to fight for what they believe in.” 

The blog itself hosts 100 articles, which cover a wide range of topics, including artificial intelligence, sexism and misogyny, racism, and even league specific issues. Each article was written by someone who is currently or was involved within speech and debate. The problems they discuss and the solutions they propose to those problems are deeply personal, to not only themselves, but also to the larger speech and debate community as well.

For me, I’ve previously written three articles for Equality in Forensics. I’ve mostly discussed issues pertaining to rural speech and debate and those of the autistic community. I chose what I chose to write about because the issues I saw within the speech and debate community as well as how these issues affected me felt very significant. I quickly realized that other competitors felt the exact same way. While I can’t speak for every single person who has authored an article for Equality in Forensics, the joy I felt when I saw how many people had reached out to me saying that what I talked about had also made them upset and that they were glad to see someone else highlighting the issues was incomparable. From people in my own circuit I’ve known for years to even people I’d never met before, what I had to say was insightful and beneficial for a large number of people.

However, not only do the themes discussed across articles in Equality in Forensics’ blog connect with multitudes of competitors, but they’ve also inspired real change within our community. 

For example, in Cade Kuznia’s article, Your Turn, Cade urges us to take action and use our voices to fight for change. Despite current international and domestic turmoil, the injustices we often see highlighted in news articles or analyzed by our family at the Thanksgiving dinner table typically lack the perspective and presence of those within the speech and debate community. As Kuznia writes, “The people with the most well-researched stance on every issue, who talk about it competitively every weekend, don't take their shot to make actual change in our schools, our communities, and, given the opportunity, in our governments.”

While Kuznia’s message itself directly encourages those involved with the speech and debate community to take action, it also serves a secondary message; the knowledge and opinions we, as competitors, have is invaluable — that being said, our perspective on prevalent issues is also invaluable. The Equality in Forensics’ blog, which provides a platform for competitors to talk about the inequities they see within speech and debate as well as the solution, is something that allows competitors to use their voice and have it be heard by the national community. Furthermore, the changes our voices via the blog have created have been revolutionary to many marginalized communities.  

In my experience, when I wrote An Ode to the Death of Rural Debate, I was frankly frustrated with my own community. As a competitor, I didn’t have many resources, and the competitive opportunities I desperately wanted just weren’t an option. At the time, my home state of West Virginia only had a qualifier for the NCFL. Consequently, there weren’t a lot of ways for one to compete at the national level, other than going to the NSDA Last Chance Qualifier or attending districts in another state, which would have been problematic in itself due to the distance, mileage, and time that would be incurred. 

While my article itself didn’t automatically grant us an NSDA qualifier, it did get a lot of my fellow competitors talking about it. Not only did we desperately want a shot at competing at the national level, but for many competitors, like me, who competed in events such as POI or informative speaking, there was no way for us to attend nationals, as neither of those events are qualifiers for the NCFL. Now, we have a district qualifier for NSDAs, and everyone in the WV Speech and Debate Association has the ability to qualify for nationals.

If I haven’t driven the point home enough yet, what we, as members of the speech and debate community, have to say is extremely important; however, what we say, especially regarding our own community, should use the most of our voices by maintaining relevance. As we’ve seen countless times, the voices of the speech and debate community have the ability to call out the oppressions and inequalities we see within our own community. When those voices are amplified, i.e. through organizations like Equality and Forensics and its blog, we can make the most of what we have to say and create significant reforms.

Moreover, the advocacy of Equality in Forensics’ blog has inspired widespread change in competitors and circuits. Without the help of the blog, it is even likely that my home state wouldn’t have an NSDA qualifier. This blog means so much to competitors like me — not only is it valuable for shedding light on inequalities across the speech and debate community, but it is creating real, indispensable change.