The Hillsdale College Debate Team poses for a photo on campus in 2024.
Courtesy | Emma Kate Mellors
Director of Debate Kirstin Kiledal says the Hillsdale College Debate team is back and ready to argue with a large team and an unusual prompt.
This fall the team will be arguing the resolution that “The United States should actively promote substantially greater unionization by implementing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act or facilitating sectoral bargaining.”
According to the Center for American Progress, sectoral bargaining is “a type of collective bargaining that provides union contract coverage for most or all workers in a particular sector.”
The act creates protection for workers who seek to create unions, more power for those unions, and harsher penalties for companies that attempt to obstruct their formation or activities.
“This one is very complex,” Kiledal said. “Usually it’s ‘United States federal government.’ But simply saying United States means that an opposing team could come up with a really weird actor or agent.”
Even with the raised difficulty, senior Rebekah George expects to win.
George said the team had a successful season last year, winning the Junior Varsity National Competition. She hopes to continue that success and said that their clear goal was to win sweepstakes awards
“Win, win, win,” George said. “Take ballots from other top programs. Get our novices on the podium.”
The prompt isn’t the only change for the team. It also has a larger team than the 13 from last year with 17 competitors making 8 1/2 debate groups.The team is bigger, but it also is more experienced, according to Kiledal.
“We have a larger team who overall has more experience than we’ve had in the last couple years,” Kiledal said. “We’ve got a few newbies, but we also have a number of new team members who have varying amounts of debate experience in various high school organizations. So we’re already starting off at a fairly strong point.”
Currently the team’s schedule includes four debates this semester, some online and some in person. Kiledal said they also hope to have a blue and white scrimmage tournament.
The team’s first official debate will be on Oct. 18-19 against the University of Oregon.
