The National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) is the largest interscholastic speech and debate organization serving middle school and high school students in the United States. It claims to “provide recognition and support for high school students participating in speech and debate activities.”
Despite posturing that they envision a world in which every school provides speech and debate programs to foster communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creative skills, at least one judge at NSDA, Lila Lavender, seems more focused on her own political agenda than fairly weighing debate arguments.
Student Briana Whatley shared that she left NSDA because of judges like Lavender.
Whatley said, “Imagine that you’re a high school debater. You are walking into your debate round to find out that Lila Lavender, a self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, is judging you. Who openly stated she would never let a student win if they made an argument defending Israel or Capitalism.”
“That’s a reality for many students. Because the National Speech and Debate Association won’t take action. They won’t condemn Lila for her bias or bar her from judging students. And so they perpetuate students being judged, not on their merit, but how they can confirm their judge’s bias.”
I am a high school debater and I quit the National Speech and Debate Association because they let self-proclaimed Marxists like Lila judge students like me. https://t.co/XDMMJUWYZx pic.twitter.com/FcPmt4L9Sr
— Briana V. Whatley (@briana_whatley) October 29, 2023
Lavender, who was the 2019 national debate champion before becoming a judge, wrote on paradigm:
“Before anything else, including being a debate judge, I am a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. I have realized as a result of this, I cannot check the revolutionary proletarian science at the door when I’m judging- as thats both impossible and opportunism.”
“If you have had me as a judge before, this explicit decision of mine does not change how you understand I evaluate rounds, with one specific exception: I will no longer evaluate and thus ever vote for rightest capitalistimperialist positions/arguments. Meaning, arguments/positions which defend the bourgeoisie’s class dictatorship (monopoly capitalism and thus imperialism), from a right-wing political form. I.e., the politics, ideology, and practice of the right-wing of the bourgeoisie.I judge every debate format in the same way: on the flow and based on (in one way or another) which team or debater wins offense that outweighs their opponents.”
“Examples of arguments of this nature are as follows: fascism good, capitalism good, imperialist war good, neoliberalism good, defenses of US or otherwise bourgeois nationalism, Zionism or normalizing Israel, colonialism good, US white fascist policing good, etc. In the context of a debate round, by default this will function through ‘drop the argument.’ I.e., if you read an advantage or DA that represents the right-wing of the bourgeoisie, I won’t evaluate that advantage or DA. If your whole 1AC or 1NC strategy is rightest capitalist-imperialist in nature, I won’t evaluate your whole 1AC or 1NC. This only becomes ‘drop the debater’ if you violently and egregiously defend counterrevolution.”
“So within that context, as much as I can, I will use my power as a judge to propagate the Maoist line and remove as much of the most explicit reactionary arguments/positions as possible. As Aly put it, ‘some level of paternalism from those of us who are committed to ensuring the future survival of this activity is necessary.’”
“One which is inherently in contradiction to proletarian revolution and human emancipation, and thus antagonistic to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. This is demonstrated well by the contradiction that most judges correctly will vote down debaters for being openly racist, yet will vote for positions which endorse the butchering of colonized and nationally oppressed People by US imperialist wars; something ive been guilty of in the past. As always, if you have any questions or good-faith criticisms of anything I mentioned within my paradigm, please don’t hesitate to email me – I will always get back to you as soon as I can!! :)) Proletarians of all countries, unite!!”
James Fishback reports that Lavender has judged 31 rounds of debate so far this year.
In May, I reported in @TheFP that high school debate judges are biased beyond belief. One judge (Lila Lavender) told students that “Before anything else, including being a debate judge, I am a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist” and “I will … never vote for” arguments, including… pic.twitter.com/u6V3cK0Otu
— James Fishback (@j_fishback) October 29, 2023
Lavender is not the only one.
In the past few years, however, judges with paradigms tainted by politics and ideology are becoming common. Debate judge Shubham Gupta’s paradigm reads, “If you are discussing immigrants in a round and describe the person as ‘illegal,’ I will immediately stop the round, give you the loss with low speaks”—low speaker points—“give you a stern lecture, and then talk to your coach. . . . I will not have you making the debate space unsafe.”
Debate Judge Kriti Sharma concurs: under her list of “Things That Will Cause You To Automatically Lose,” number three is “Referring to immigrants as ‘illegal.’”
In June, Briana spoke to Newsmax after she was told by a teacher that she was not allowed to bring up Donald Trump during a tournament.
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