"If you don't have a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization or a hustling, bustling start-up company by the time you apply for college, who even are you?"

Yet another constructive part of life for American youth is perverted by the college applications rat race. There are millions of academically ambitious high schoolers across the country who plan every class, extracurricular, and activity around making themselves appealing candidates for college. What better way to demonstrate your commitment and generosity to a prestigious university, than by starting a nonprofit organization?

The college admissions process gives ambitious students a perverse incentive: start a nonprofit organization to look good, not to make a difference—otherwise referred to as a "performative NPO."

Ambitious high school students are busy, and engaging in meaningful activism is incredibly time-consuming. So why should they bother spending thousands, if not tens of thousands of hours on a truly impactful NPO when you could throw together a snappy website, a sleek Instagram page, file for 501(c)3 status, and call it a day?

On paper, the difference between the two is negligible to application reviewers because a savvy student knows how to game the application system anyways. The common app is a crude approximation of a student's commitment and dedication; when an application reviewer reads about a student's super awesome NPO on a piece of paper or a digital text file, they cannot possibly know whether tens or thousands of hours went into the accomplishment of that organization's mission.

Knowing this, students have every incentive to start an NPO with a catchy name, an important mission, and a presentable exterior, but only conduct as much activism as necessary to look good on a college application.

Putting your NPO on your college application does not make you a bad person. Everyone wants to promote themselves, and that's perfectly valid. Who doesn't want to get into Harvard? If you start an impactful NPO as a freshman and it's the main focus of the essay that gets you into an Ivy League school, good for you! The distinction I try to make in this article is between those NPOs founded solely for the sake of getting into an exclusive college and NPOs founded out of selflessness, altruism, and dedication to an important mission.

Since we've already established that performative NPOs are still concerned with cultivating a strong, positive public image, what do they actually do with their platform? Whether we're walking about debate-related NPOs or not, it's easy to find comfort in the thousands of Instagram pages dedicated solely to "raising awareness", many of which are pet projects started by high schoolers to inevitably fluff up a resume or college application.

Raising awareness is great, but awareness does not equate to action. Having a strong social media presence does not equate to direct activism. Even genuinely selfless NPOs struggle to bridge the gap between awareness and action, but performative NPOs are uniquely incentivized to foster complacency in the face of growing injustice and inequity.

When motivated, passionate students focus on learning Canva and maximizing social media engagement in the name of raising awareness and call it a day, they could instead be engaging in direct activism and community engagement, too. Awareness is no substitute for action.

Being conscious of problems in society, in your community, or in the debate space is not the same thing as working to solve them. As much as everyone has to take care of their interests, I truly believe we all have a duty to make the world a better place. If you're even involved in debate enough to bother reading this article, you very possibly come from a position of enough privilege that you should get involved in direct action to make the debate space better, too.

To be honest, this is why I was reluctant to start a blog early in Equality in Forensics' history. Anyone can identify problems in the status quo. Raising awareness is nearly inconsequential as long as that awareness is not mobilized into action. That's why we instruct our writers to propose constructive, feasible solutions to the inequities we observe in the debate space. This article will be no exception.

This unique brand of performative activism is harmful because it sees advocacy as a means to an end, not an end in of itself. Performative NPOs capitalize on inequality and injustice to advance a student's academic career. This devalues the pressing problems that performative NPOs claim to address, reducing examples of inequality and injustice to convenient boogiemen, not harmful problems which can be fixed with direct action.

 The Solution

How can we fix this? Good luck getting College Board or universities across the country to fix their deeply flawed admissions policy. The solution starts with high school students. It starts with me and you, and it starts in the debate space, too.

1. Stop the toxic relationship with college admissions process

Many ambitious high school students have a deeply unhealthy relationship with the college admissions process. Whether we're talking about the Ivy League or not, American society and culture glorifies prestigious schools like Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and MIT. Many students are the children of ambitious, hard-working immigrants who want their children to secure a prosperous future in the United States (myself included). Many students face tremendous pressure from their parents to get into the best college possible.

Every student has a right to relentlessly pursue their academic future. Although admission to top universities does not define life outcomes, it certainly is pretty impactful. However, it is not right to exploit and commodify inequity and injustice as part of your master plan to get into Harvard!

Ever since I founded Equality in Forensics along with my board in 2021, dozens of people have asked me: can you help me start a nonprofit organization? My answer is always, "Sure! But first: are you doing this just to get into a good college?" If the answer is yes, you really probably are better off finding something else to do. 

At some level, the college admissions process does incentivize philanthropy, generosity, and activism, even if the final goal isn't necessarily altruistic. There are undoubtedly high school students who have founded genuinely impactful NPOs mostly to get into college. That's great! But these organizations are the exception. They really should not be our model for youth activism.

Whether you're thinking of starting an NPO or not, ask yourself: does my ambition to get into a good college mean compromising my values as a principled member of society? The answer should always be no.

2. Appreciate the inherent value in genuine activism

People are conscious of the issues plaguing society, including people who start performative NPOs. Very often, they underestimate the impact they, as an individual, can have on alleviating these issues. As problems like wealth inequality, climate change, and racial injustice seem to spiral out of control, it is only defeatist to think that we can't influence the world for the better.

This is why people engage in genuine, passionate activism. The closer the issue gets to us personally, the more influence we have over fixing it.

In speech & debate, specifically, underprivileged students from small programs, underfunded schools, and financially struggling families are at a massive disadvantage. Personally, I come from a small team which I founded in my freshman year, and my parents don't have the financial means to send me to every tournament I'd like to attend. I'm incredibly privileged to have most of my travel, hotel, and entry expenses covered by my school, and very fortunate to have learned so much from the generous and talented speech & debate community. I would have had nowhere near as much success in my debate career without the support of dozens of caring, talented, and motivated speakers & debaters that I've met along the way. As the people who mentored and supported me graduate or get close to graduating, I feel a duty to the students I see now going through the same struggles I did as a middle schooler and freshman. I feel an obligation to give back to the community, make sure they have the same advantages I did, and do my part to leave the debate space better than I found it.

Diversity, equity, inclusion and equality are not just the punchlines for a college essay. They are valuable ideals which deserve protection in of themselves.

3. Examples of important, impactful activism in the debate space

This is a pretty critical article. It would be silly to just criticize hundreds of students and organizations when there are countless who are working hard to make the debate space a more accessible, inclusive, and equitable community. Let's give credit where credit is due!

It's easy to overlook these communities, since they're not exactly organizations, but they play a critical role in connecting hundreds of. No matter your level of experience or your event of choice, having friends and connections who can help you out and hook you up with opportunities is incredibly valuable. These Discord servers play an underrated role in making speech & debate more accessible to underprivileged students.

Speech & debate is a pretty tiny microcosm of society at large. You are a member of a unique, niche community home to its own problems and inequities. You, no matter who you are, can make a significant, meaningful impact on the debate space. This section will go on to applaud a few impactful organizations and NPOs in the debate space - I encourage you to get involved and help out! For example, if you think you have something to contribute to Equality in Forensics' programs and projects, you are welcome to apply for our staff team.

First of all, I'd like to recognize a few online communities for their constant generosity:

• Forensics discord

• Congress discord

• Extemp discord

• Public forum discord

• Equality in Forensics discord

• Debate subreddit

The Impact Institute is an organization dedicated to making congressional debate more accessible. Every year, they publish a useful brief for congress debaters attending nationals. While contributing to the prelim briefs this year for 2023 NSDA nats, I observed a genuine, friendly and dedicated team of volunteers truly passionate about making congressional debate more accessible.

Break with Bronx is an organization run mostly by congress debaters at the Bronx High School of Science, one of the most active and dominant congress teams on the national circuit. For many years they hosted lectures, workshops, and mock rounds over the summer to give back to the community. Unfortunately, they couldn't host any events this summer.

The Online Debate Institute (ODI) is a free online Lincoln-Douglas debate camp which focuses on progressive/circuit debate. Attending . Although I decided that circuit LD wasn't for me, I learned a tremendous amount and made many good friends among my coaches and labmates. Unfortunately, due to a lack of interested volunteer staff, they were unable to host their camp in 2023 - I hope to see them back next summer.

Academy37 is an organization dedicated to making extemporaneous speaking more accessible. This summer, they ran a completely free, online week-long workshop to introduce students to extemporaneous speaking.

Space City Camp is an online WSD and speech camp founded by the 2021 national champions in World Schools Debate, from the Space City district in Houston, Texas. For three years now, they have dutifully run completely free and online summer programs for underprivileged students across the country. I had the privilege of attending their camp in 2021 and 2022, and their staff have been generous enough to participate as coaches and judges at Equality in Forensics events, too.

There are many more organizations that directly help the speech & debate community. This site showcases some more of them here.