This past season, the Hewitt debate team has thrived with its active participation, engaged cross-school collaboration, and ever-expanding skill sets.
The team debated topics ranging from high-speed trains to Western Asian politics. Each week the members grew their skills at tournaments taking place at The Regis School, debating against teams all around New York, including The Nightingale-Bamford, The Spence School, Stuyvesant High School, The Bronx High School of Science, and many more. In addition to their weekly Friday tournaments, they participated in the 2023 Columbia Tournament this past January and the New York Regional Tournament in early March. In doing so, the team uses the Public Forum Debate format, which is fairly simple: two partnerships with opposing views—separated by PRO and CON—on a topic try to convince a judge that the impact of their own argument is better for the world.
Thanks to each member’s enormous effort, dedication, and commitment, this year’s team showed numerous accomplishments: Sam C. ‘25 and Siobhan A. ‘26 advanced to the New York State Debate championships in late April, where they will debate about the US’s policies on biometric recognition; at the International Columbia Tournament in January, multiple Hewitt teams placed in the top 20 teams overall including Nina B. ‘24, Chloe P. ‘24, Julian P. ‘24, Emelia F. ‘24, Goldie Z. ‘25 and Audrey H. ‘25, with some debaters awarded top-10 speaker awards for their performances. As the club grew this year, so did the club member’s skills and ambitions. “Not only have students applied themselves fully to research, influential rhetoric, composure, and teamwork, but they’ve developed one of the most important skills to maintain in life: the ability to first prioritize fact for proper opinion making to follow,” says Aerin A. ‘23.
Though Hewitt’s debate community is flourishing and the New York Debate Circuit is home to some extremely talented female debaters, debate remains an extremely male-dominated activity. According to Nie and Yie 2020 in An Empirical Study of Gender Differences in Competitive High School Debate, “female-female teams are 17.1% less likely and male-female teams are 10.0% less likely to win a debate round against male-male teams than vice versa.” Additionally, female participation in debate decreases starting in ninth grade, with “female debaters being 30.34% more likely to quit than male debaters,’ Nie and Yie continue. After high school, this disparity continues through further education. To a study conducted by Dartmouth College, “Men speak 1.6 times more often than women in college classrooms, revealing how gender inequities regarding classroom participation still exist.” Then, after college and into further careers, it is found that “in 2022, 38.3% of lawyers were female while 61.5% were male.” Across industries, females are disproportionately represented in high-level and powerful positions, as Nie and Yie find only “7.4 percent of fortune 500 companies are led by female CEOs.”
The gender gap revealed within the debate circuit is prominent and requires attention.“Debate definitely allows for Hewitt students to utilize their voices. However, as a community, the private school debate circuit definitely has places to improve,” comments Addie S. ‘25. “The circuit is dominated by male students, especially from certain schools, but Hewitt continues to present strong arguments and partnerships that challenge this theme.”
The Hewitt Debate Club has taken steps to fill this gap. Taking advantage of the community connections gained during tournaments, Hewitt has partnered with the all-girls school, The Nightingale-Bamford School to host practice debates separate from tournaments. “By working together as all-girls schools, we can encourage other girls across the city to join the debate and diversify debate competitions,” starts Laila A. ‘25. “Debate teaches girls that we don’t need to be shy or quiet to be respected and that our opinions matter” (Laila A ‘25).
Aligning with our mission statement, debate gives Hewitt students an outlet to begin to dismantle this system, gaining confidence in speaking up, making noise for change, and using their knowledge as a powerful tool to create the change they want to see in the world. Needless to say, the future of the Hewitt Debate team is very bright!