Parliamentary Debate: An Answer to Debate’s Inaccessible Nature

Debate originated as a way for teens across the world to come together and discuss the most pressing issues of our time. It started as a way to promote civil discourse, something that has remained important through our shifting political environments. 

However, in today’s world, it seems that debate is a question of who has the most resources. Not a question of the best debater, but a question of the best coaches and beginning “training” as early as possible. 

This is not to say that the activity is ruined, or that successes of great debaters on the circuit are any less commendable — there is no doubt that debate takes hard work, creativity, and intelligence. What it does mean is that debate is extremely inequitable and small school debaters are at a unique disadvantage. Of course there are ways to fix this and there are a lot of resources being spread throughout the circuit. 

Another solution that goes frequently looked past is focusing more on more accessible forms of debate, like parliamentary (parli) debate. In parli, competitors debate different topics each round, ranging from international economic policy to philosophical dilemmas. Debaters get 20 minutes of internet prep and are not allowed team or coach help during that time. In many tournaments, such as the National Parliamentary Debate League, students are not allowed to use backfiles and may not utilize their computers during the debate round itself, unless needed for accessibility.

This style of debate helps combat many accessibility concerns in the forensics community while also bringing debate back to its core of nuanced argumentation about critical world issues and important questions of our time. By not allowing coaches or backfiles, debate becomes less about who can have their coaches prep-out the most people and more about critical thinking and creativity. Consequently, the debate becomes less about cutting as many cards as possible. Additionally, it helps debaters from smaller schools that may lack comprehensive resources and debaters from larger schools compete on a more equal playing field. All competitors need to know to be involved is basic knowledge of current events and a partner. It is also extremely easy to practice — the NPDL and NYPDL publish hundreds of motions online, which allows debaters to improve their skills simply by practicing giving speeches on those motions by themselves. 

In addition, the event is extremely fun and beneficial for one’s education — it encourages debates to know about a broad array of world topics and it allows them to run different types of arguments every round. It lets debaters be truly creative and helps develop on the spot thinking skills. Debaters will find themselves learning about various social movements, but also sometimes debating the best way to host Thanksgiving Dinner. 

It’s important to note that this is not to discredit other events. Personally, I love progressive Lincoln-Douglas debate and I think it provides its own value as well. But parli is not even recognized by the NSDA, despite having many strong leagues such as the New York Parliamentary Debate League (NYPDL), its own Tournament of Champions (NPDL TOC) , and being prevalent across colleges both in the U.S. and globally. Most national tournaments, including Harvard, UPenn, and even Princeton, do not offer it either. Consequently, parli tends to be discouraged rather than encouraged and this accessible event struggles to maintain its prevalence. I often feel less inclined to compete in parli, since it seems “less important”. There is also less national knowledge about the existence of parli, making it harder for the event to gain traction. This is evident in the fact that NPDL TOC had only 10 states in attendance this year (and 67% of attendees were from California). 

Moreover, its lack of availability nationally means that students from disadvantaged communities and states do not have access to the event. This creates a negative feedback loop: its lack of availability means that less people encourage it and participate, which then decreases its availability. By making the event more accepted and available, we can bring it to resource deficient states, thereby making debate something that more people can access and enjoy. Limited prep events, such as extemporaneous speaking and impromptu, have already proven extremely beneficial to accessibility — so, why not expand this to debate? 

Therefore, it is time we start encouraging parli across the country, at a state and national level. It's time that more national tournaments begin to offer parli, which allows people to have a place where they are not concerned about being out-prepped by bigger schools or not having the pre-round coaching that other schools have. It must also be offered at the local level to ensure that students not only know about the event, but can get involved on a consistent basis. Leagues such as the NYPDL already offer monthly tournaments and it’s time that the forensics community encourages more initiatives like this.

Furthermore, it is vital that we maintain parli in its current state. Although there has been discussion about allowing backfiles to encourage progressive argumentation and progressive arguments have been beneficial to the debate community, it is necessary that we have an event that does not become about who has more resources. This event will only stay accessible if we keep it the way it is — no backfiles, no pre-round prep, just on the spot thinking and creative argumentation. 

Thus, if we really want to make debate accessible for all, it’s time we stop putting the one event that maximizes accessibility on the backburner. It’s time we begin to actually prioritize and give parliamentary debate the attention it deserves.