Debate tournament competitors pose for a selfie. Courtesy | Ben Brown

Freshmen Kate Klein and Ewan McNamara finished second last weekend in the junior varsity league of Weber State University’s Mukai Debate Tournament. 

Klein and McNamara competed online against nine other teams from four schools, while Hillsdale’s varsity team, composed of junior and team manager Ben Brown and sophomores Alex Mooney and Ryan Rodell, competed against 17 teams from eight different schools. They debated the resolution determined for spring 2025 by Collegiate Advocacy Research and Debate: “Resolved: The United States federal government should adopt one of the following: a carbon tax, an emissions trading scheme, or removal of fossil fuel subsidies.”

Klein and McNamara won the first four preliminary rounds, lost the fifth, and lost 2-1 in the final round to Gonzaga University. 

“We won all six rounds last debate tournament, and four rounds this time, so we had a 10 out of 10 undefeated streak,” Klein said.

Klein said the final round tested the pair when the affirmative team brought up the argument of degrowth as the positive consequences of their suggested policy, one the duo had not prepared for. 

“Quickly preparing for a completely new idea, a new advantage that we had to defend against, understanding the entire concept of degrowth within 15 minutes and then coming up with a rebuttal to that was the most I learned from that round,” Klein said.

McNamara said the cross-examination during the final round was particularly intense.

“Our opponent was trying to essentially ask questions to make me say something that they were going to then use in their argument. They were leading questions,” McNamara said. “I just sat there and said, ‘I don’t have to prove that. That’s outside the scope of this debate.’”

Klein said the opponent was not amused with McNamara’s response, but Klein was impressed.

“He was a diplomat. He answered the questions without actually answering questions,” Klein said.

McNamara said the second round also proved difficult when the opposing team used a fossil fuel subsidies argument. 

“We didn’t have an actual document outlining what we should say. So we built that in five minutes before the round started, and we won our second round,” McNamara said. “Sometimes forces outside of your control can really mess you up, and you just got to go with it. Just keep moving forward.”

Brown, Mooney, and Rodell debated five rounds and lost their second round to Oregon University, and although they didn’t make it into the final rounds, the team scored a personal victory.

“One of the rounds that we won was against Gonzaga, which was a huge win, because they’re far and away the best school in the league, and we’ve lost to them several times in the past, consecutively, and so just being able to win that was really huge,” Brown said.

Brown said the team won on two arguments, one of which they didn’t see as particularly significant at first, and the other of which was not even on their minds until halfway through the round.

“Just being able to see that that was the best strategic decision mid-rounds — it was a bit of a gamble. It’s certainly an unorthodox strategy, but it wound up working out,” Brown said.

The team’s faculty advisor and teacher, Professor of Rhetoric and Public Address Kirstin Kiledal, said another goal of the team for their future tournament is to win more speaker awards.

“Our real goals are to up the game with regard to giving really good, sound speeches, so that we end up winning argument and analysis and evidence awards,” Kiledal said. 

Brown said the tournament helped to focus the team’s research and development of certain anti-capitalist and Marxist arguments. He added that much of the evidence the teams had used in the fall hinged on the Paris Climate Agreement, which Donald Trump, upon election, had withdrawn from the United States.

“Teams are going to have to pivot to different strategies,” Brown said.

Kiledal said the team hopes to attend more tournaments in-person, but it is difficult when those tournaments are projected to take place in Minnesota, Arizona, and Wyoming.

“Sometimes the benefits, if you already have a strong team with plenty of bonding and that works well together, can be offset in terms of some of the other features, such as winter travel and budgetary expenses when almost all of our tournaments are West Coast,” Kiledal said. 

Kiledal said she plans to do on-campus scrimmages between all the debate teams. 

“We’ve picked up five to six new debaters this semester, and we need to give them some experience before we fly them 1,000 miles across the country,” Kiledal said.

Klein and McNamara are both two of those new debaters, and their strengths, according to Klein, lie in impact weighing and economics, respectively. Kiledal said Klein, who had a completely different debate style background, and McNamara, who had never debated before coming to Hillsdale, work really well together.

“They listen to one another,” Kiledal said. “Their styles work well together, and they’ve worked hard to build their own affirmative case and the arguments that come from it.” 

According to Brown, the team had checked off many of the goals they made at the beginning of the year, including a ballot taken from Gonzaga University, a JV team win, speaker awards, and finals rounds.

“Funnily enough, the goal might be to set more goals, because on a lot of fronts, we’re doing really well,” Brown said. “It’s been a really great season. I’m grateful for that.”