Parents of college-bound students know it’s not just academics and SAT scores that count for admission to top tier schools, it’s also extracurricular activities.

Among the most influential activities is high school debate. If your child has participated in debate it was most likely through the National Speech & Debate Association (NDSA) which for nearly a century has helped teach two million high school students the principles of debate.

Alumni include Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Ketanji Brown Jackson, one-third of congress, and debate coach James T. Fishback.

Over the past month Fishback has blown the lid off a scandal that has been brewing in NDSA for a while, in two articles in The Free Press.

The Free Press is a media company founded by Bari Weiss, former columnist and staff writer at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

You see, Fishback believes something that used to be considered a given in debate.

“As a debate judge, I couldn’t care less whether a student’s argument aligns with my politics. What I care about is students making good, well-reasoned arguments backed by evidence. If a student does that, they should win. Period.” (Twitter)

If your student’s goal is law school this will come in handy when they are given a case and made to argue both sides.

Well that was then and this is now.

In April, 2022, one Matthew Adelstein was competing at the Tournament of Champions in Lexington, KY where he argued in favor of the federal government increasing protection of water resources.

In the final round the opposing team chose to ignore the issue entirely, substituting a personal attack on him based on a tweet he’d made a month before in response to the question, “Name one thing that you, personally, feel is morally disgusting, but that you think, rationally, should be legal and accepted by society.”

Adelstein answered, “Calling people racial or homophobic slurs.”

Once this was not even controversial, the First Amendment protects unpopular speech even when heinous. And more to the point, it has nothing to do with water issues.

However the judge awarded the win to the opposition.

Lest you think this an isolated case Fishback provided a number of statements from debate judges about what they consider off-limits.

“Before anything else, including being a debate judge, I am a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist. . . . I cannot check the revolutionary proletarian science at the door when I’m judging. . . . I will no longer evaluate and thus never vote for rightest capitalist-imperialist positions/arguments. . . . Examples of arguments of this nature are as follows: fascism good, capitalism good, imperialist war good, neoliberalism good, defenses of US or otherwise bourgeois nationalism, Zionism or normalizing Israel, colonialism good, US white fascist policing good, etc.” said Lila Lavender, 2019 national debate champion.

Basically, if you say anything favorable about: capitalism, police, Israel, or immigration enforcement, you will lose.

“Things That Will Cause You To Automatically Lose, #3 Referring to immigrants as ‘illegal.'” Debate Judge Kriti Sharma.

Anyone who’s been paying attention has to realize there is an ongoing assault on free speech that has taken hold in some of the most venerable institutions of our society, such as the NDSA. An assault that is coordinated, well financed, and scary.

History shows an assault on free speech is only the beginning of something terrible.

To fight for free speech Fishback has founded an alternative debate organization called Incubate Debate and is asking for students’ stories about their experiences at tips@thefp.com.

— Steve Browne is a longtime reporter and contributor