Academic debate turned into propaganda.

In a recent essay at The Free Press, James Fishback reports on the radical leftist bias that has taken over the judging of high school debates at the national level. Although he focuses on the developments of a particular extracurricular program, his account should worry everyone since it’s illustrative of what’s happening to the culture at large.

After showcasing his credentials as a former nationally ranked debater and debate coach, Fishback gives a not-so-hypothetical situation of a sophomore studying a debate topic intensely for months, only to discover that one of her judges is a radical leftist who has explicitly declared, “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.” Although this judge was among the most aggressive and outspoken in her partiality, Fishback mentions others with similar profiles.

No matter what side the sophomore must argue, she will need to make sure to do so with a leftist slant. And for anyone with an inkling of history, economics, and basic common sense, such leftist arguments are notoriously weak and incoherent — not to mention immoral. Thus, rather than learning more facts about her issue to make a stronger case, the sophomore is unlearning those facts to make a weaker case to a prejudiced judge.

As Fishback notes, “Once students have been exposed to enough of these partisan paradigms, they internalize that point of view and adjust their arguments going forward.” Over time, this practice of continually catering to leftist activists transforms young talented debaters into committed ideologues and seasoned propagandists for the left. By extension, it transforms the whole culture of competitive debate into an absurd echo chamber where the very principles of a reasoned argument are replaced with mindless partisan signaling.

Naturally, the habits and attitudes of these debaters have made their way onto college campuses. As with high school debate, more and more colleges have become the inverse of what they were originally designed to be. What were once centers of academic scholarship, ideological tolerance, and intellectual discipline have degenerated into cesspools of partisanship, anti-intellectualism, and groupthink.

All that said, in the interest of following the rules of an honest and proper debate, it’s worth considering whether Fishback’s report is actually representative of what’s happening in national high school debating circuits. Therefore, I asked Josh H