For hundreds of thousands of students across the country, debate is an essential space in schools that provides them access to community and skills they would otherwise go without. Historically, joining a debate team was a privilege restricted to few people, predominantly white males. But more and more speakers of color are joining debate teams in their communities thanks to nonprofit groups like Boston Debate League.
Founded in 2005, Boston Debate League provides students the opportunity to compete in monthly debate competitions.
“What’s important to me is that they [students] learn skills that they can transfer to other areas of their lives,” Executive Director Kim Willingham told Basic Black.
On debate teams, students learn essential skills like critical thinking and collaboration, while also fostering self-confidence. For Black and brown students, these spaces can be uniquely important since they are so often told to be quiet.
Dr. Deion Hawkins, assistant professor of argumentation and advocacy and director of debate at Emerson College, has been debating since he was 13 years old. He credits debate with teaching him critical thinking, learning how to ask great questions and thinking on the fly.
“The skills that debate teaches are more important than ever, to be able to listen critically to both sides and understand what piece of evidence to use,” said Hawkins.
Boston City Councilor At-Large Ruthzee Louijeune agreed it’s important to teach young kids how to debate, pointing to her own experience as an attorney and politician.
“A good policy advocate is all about presenting facts in a way that are credible, backing it up with evidence and anticipating what the other side is going to say and incorporating that argument in and doing it in a way that is civil,” said Louijeune.
For students of color, debate has historically been harder to access for a litany of reasons. Lynn Yeboah, a student and policy debater at Harvard Debate Council said it was challenging when she first joined the debate team at Harvard four years ago.
“I was the only Black woman at the time. I was talking about critical race theory and arguments they weren’t talking about,” said Yeboah. “Now the Harvard team is a predominantly Black team.”
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