WUDL Public Debates
While debate tournaments provide a great environment to test ideas and build your skills, we try to provide our students the opportunity to take their skills out into the community and discuss the issues of the day.
Stay Tuned: The WUDL is partnering with the Forum on the Arms Trade for a public debate on U.S. Arm Sales this season!
Drones: Escape Velocity Tech Conference
May 26, 2019
WUDL students Michelle Njoku, Ernest Ntangu, and Jonathan Collins of DuVal High School faced Assiata Kamagate, Marques Anderson, and Iyonna Calloway of Fredrick Douglas High School in front of a packed crowd of tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs to discuss drone technology. Sparked by the construction of Amazon's HQ2 in the D.C. area, the debate covered issues from military usage to commercial deliveries and international law ramifications of the emerging technology.
The Atlantic's 5th Annual Education Policy Summit
April 11, 2017
Two of the league's best debaters, Paola Almendarez (DC International PCS) supporting Charter Schools) and Paris Smalley (PGCPS's Flowers High School, supporting Traditional Schools) squared off to debate school choice. The audience included superintendents, researchers, and other practitioners. at The Atlantic's Education Policy Summit. The students debated, then took questions from the policymakers.
WUDL Debates US China Policy
July 25, 2016
To kick off the 2nd Annual Matthew H Ornstein Washington Summer Debate Institute, students debated whether the US should engage China over its human rights record and treatment of the Uyghur people.
Courtesy of the National Commission on Presidential Debates, students were able to present from the podiums used in the 2012 Presidential Debates between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney
Flip The Debate! 2016 Presidential Election
October 03, 2016
In honor of the 2016 Presidential Election, the WUDL hosted the finals of Flip the Debate, a public debate competition sponsored by the National Association of Urban Debate Leagues. Students from around the nation will address pressing issues from the Presidential Election such as gun control, immigration reform, and ISIS, culminating in a public debate here in Washington, a few days before the election.
DC Statehood Debate
April 20, 2016
The WUDL partnered with DCPS and DC Vote! to debate whether or not D.C. should be granted Statehood. Students from Banneker High School discussed the latest proposals for statehood that have been proposed in congress, consulted the attorneys involved in the last legal challenge to statehood, and delved into the Federalist Papers to discuss the constitutionality of these proposals. D.C. Shadow Senator Brown served as the honorary judge.