Dorothy, Please Is There a Way for Me to Get Home?

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i was so sick and tired of people telling me that what i had to say debate, and what i thought about debate was in legit when debate was a student driven activity. And then after a few minutes, argent, the sophomore from northwestern, i got up and i gave the first negative speech. Yo a mu on te badtat ro o hebeaa tebr thelano. You gont tome ooa oi tmatacoumteso. He ended his eight and a half minute speech on sort of like hopeful appeal, you know, to never give up. Dorothy just can't go by herself, you know?

In competitive debate future presidents, supreme court justices, and titans of industry pummel each other with logic and rhetoric.

Unclasp your briefcase. It’s time for a showdown. Looking back on an episode originally aired in 2016, we take a good long look at the world of competitive college debate. This is Ryan Wash's story. He's a queer, Black, first-generation college student from Kansas City, Missouri who joined the debate team at Emporia State University on a whim. When he started going up against fast-talking, well-funded, “name-brand” teams, from places like Northwestern and Harvard, it was clear he wasn’t in Kansas anymore. So Ryan became the vanguard of a movement that made everything about debate debatable. In the end, he made himself a home in a strange and hostile land. Whether he was able to change what counts as rigorous academic argument … well, that’s still up for debate.

Special thanks to Will Baker, Myra Milam, John Dellamore, Sam Mauer, Tiffany Dillard Knox, Mary Mudd, Darren "Chief" Elliot, Jodee Hobbs, Rashad Evans and Luke Hill.

Special thanks also to Torgeir Kinne Solsvik for use of the song h-lydisk / B Lydian from the album Geirr Tveitt Piano Works and Songs

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