The Lafayette Debates is an international platform for student dialogue and debate founded by the Embassy of France to the United States and The George Washington University in the belief that now, more than ever, a vigorous and respectful transatlantic dialogue is of the utmost importance not only to the citizens of France and the United States, but also the world.
The Lafayette Debates tradition began in 1824 during the "hero's tour" to the United States of General Marquis de Lafayette and his son, George Washington Lafayette. The Lafayette Debates were revived in 2013 by Emilienne Baneth-Nouailhetas, former Attache for University Cooperation, and Paul S. Hayes, Director of Debate for The George Washington University Debate & Literary Society.
The 2022 Lafayette Debates U.S. National Championship will be held Friday to Saturday, April 22-23, 2022, in Washington DC at The George Washington University. The championship rounds will be judged by topic experts and stakeholders recruited by the Embassy of France.
The 2022 Lafayette Debates will challenge U.S. students to scrutinize the following topic, "The New Urban Agenda should be a sustainable development priority." Our 2022 National Champions will be invited to report to the President of the United Nations' Governing Council for the New Urban Agenda on the arguments and research presented during the debates.
Click below for tournament registration information and history. Scroll down for the tournament schedule and rules.
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We encourage visitors to indoor GW venues, including the Charles E. Smith Center, Lisner Auditorium and Jack Morton Auditorium, to enroll and complete the CLEAR Health Pass prior to their arrival on campus.
Using the CLEAR Health Pass is not required. Individuals who do not register through the CLEAR Health Pass will need to be prepared to show a copy of their Centers for Disease Control (CDC) vaccination card and a government-issued photo ID (for those 18 and up) during their visit.
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There are no visitor requirements for guests under 5 years of age.
Topic
The New Urban Agenda should be a sustainable development priority.
Topic Statement
The New Urban Agenda aspires to present a shared vision for a better and more sustainable urban future – one in which all people have equal rights and access to the benefits and opportunities that cities can offer. Cities and metropolitan areas house over half of the world’s population and that figure is expected to rise to 60% by 2030. Urban areas are responsible for roughly 60% of global GDP, 70% of global carbon emissions, and 60% of global resource use. Discussions of building a sustainable and equitable future must address the ways our cities are organized, built, maintained, and administered.
This year’s Lafayette Debates topic challenges students from the United States and France to assess whether the Agenda is a desirable global blueprint for urban development. Specifically, Affirmative teams are asked to defend the proposition that implementing the New Urban Agenda should be a sustainable development priority. The term “priority” was chosen over terms such as “mandate” to reflect the reality that different nations face different challenges and have differing capacities and resources for implementing the best practices for urban development detailed in the Agenda. Affirmatives must defend, however, that cities will treat the Agenda as the preeminent and authoritative global guideline for urban development to the extent reasonably possible.
Negatives are asked to rebut the proposition that the New Urban Agenda constitutes a desirable global blueprint for urban development. This may include (1) arguing that prioritizing the implementation of the best practices outlined in the Agenda would result in, on balance, undesirable outcomes as compared to the outcomes that would emerge absent the Agenda and/or (2) presenting a competitive counterproposal. If Negative teams elect to pursue the latter strategy – suggesting a counterproposal -- the Negative team has the burden of clearly explaining the elements of the counterproposal in their first speech and to prevail must win the arguments that (1) prioritizing the counterproposal is more desirable than prioritizing the New Urban Agenda and (2) that the counterproposal is “competitive,” i.e., that prioritizing the counterproposal alone is more desirable than implementing both the New Urban Agenda and the counterproposal or elements thereof together.
Schedule
All Times EST
Friday, April 22
4 pm Check-In & Orientation: University Student Center Room 309, 800 21st ST NW, Washington DC 20052.
5 pm Round 1
6:30 pm Round 2
Saturday, April 23
8:30 Check In & Orientation: Elliott School of International Affairs Lobby, 1957 E ST NW, Washington DC 20052. Breakfast provided.
9:00 Round 3
10:30 Round 4
Announcement of Quarterfinalists. Lunch provided.
Quarterfinals
Semifinals & General Lafayette Championship Round
Lafayette Debates National Championship
Awards
Judges
Semifinals, The General Lafayette Championship, and the Lafayette Debates National Championship will be judged by the topic stakeholders listed below. Preliminary rounds and quarterfinals will be judged by judges provided by and/or hired by participating schools. If GWU teams advance to elimination rounds, teams will be anonymized to avoid potential conflicts.
Femi Adelakun II is a City Management Specialist with a demonstrated history of working in the private sector and in government administration and city management. As the Founder of City78, he oversees urban analysis, geospatial analyses and development of urban economic development tools. Femi has a Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from and is an Academic Advisor in the Urban and Regional Planning program at Georgetown University.
Matthew Dalbey is senior executive at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He is a proven thought leader in developing community-driven economic revitalization strategies at the local, state, and federal level. These strategies focus on identifying economic drivers, build on existing assets, and supports economic growth that improves environmental and human health outcomes. In the Biden-Harris Administration he has been the career lead supporting EPA’s participation on the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Powerplant Communities and Economic Revitalization. He is part of the Senior Executive Service (SES) and has doctorate in urban planning from Columbia University.
Joy McFadden is an environmental engineer who specializes in sustainable landscape design, urban planning, and architecture. Joy was the co-captain of the winning Students Reinventing Cities Washington DC team and her TED Talk on that project is entitled, "Can Bandaids Heal Ivy City?" She is pursuing a Masters in Sustainable Urban Planning at The George Washington University and is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Engineering.
Michael Svoboda is a professor in GW's University Writing Program, the former Director of GW's Sustainability Minor, and a regular contributor to the online magazine Climate Connections. Prof. Svoboda’s most recent work combines interests in politics and the environment with the study of popular culture. His work has been published in Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Review of Communication, Research in Philosophy & Technology, Bulletin of Science, Technology, and Society, Environmental Communication, and WIREs Climate Change. His current book project is a broader study of the intersections among popular culture, climate change, and American politics.
Joshua Zive is Senior Principal at Bracewell LLP and counselor for clients confronting complex legislative, regulatory, and legal compliance issues including energy, environmental, and anti-corruption law. He has provided commentary on matters involving legislation, political law and international trade to a wide variety of media outlets, including the BBC, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other legal and trade publications. Josh was a nationally successful debater as an undergraduate student and helped coach successful intercollegiate debate teams at Baylor University and the University of Kansas while he was in graduate school.
Sandra Whitehead is the Program Director of the Sustainable Urban Planning Department at The George Washington University. She is also a member of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Committee and the former Director of Program and Partnership Development for the National Environment Health Association. Sandra has a doctorate in Public Administration from Florida State University.
Selecting the Winning Team
Each round will last about an hour and will involve two competing teams of two debaters each. You will be judging on a panel of 3 jurists. Although the debate format is specified below, the debaters will be responsible for timing and attending to the order of their speeches and/or there will be a timekeeper in each round. Your only responsibility during the round is to listen with an open mind and take notes on the debate.
The Lafayette Debates provide college debaters a rare opportunity to test their skills debating for judges from both inside and outside of the college debate community, including distinguished professionals and topic experts. Please do not worry if you do not have experience judging college debate rounds. The most important thing to remember when judging a debate is that if a team convinces you they have won the round, they have won the round!
The primary question you should ask yourself as a judge is which team has done the better debating on the question raised by the tournament topic. First and foremost, this question asks which team has been more effective in meeting their basic burdens of advocacy and rejoinder. This means “constructing” complete and persuasive arguments supported by logic and evidence, as well as directly responding to the key arguments constructed by their opponents. Secondarily, judges should consider factors such as public speaking skills, organization, and command of the subject matter.
There is no single formula for determining which team did the best debating. In short, you are attempting to assess which team presented the most powerful advocacy when considering all of the many factors that advocacy entails.
Although judging is subjective, it is important that you do not allow personal bias or beliefs about the issues being debated to influence whom you choose as winner. Indeed, you may conclude that a team has been more powerful in making its case even if you do not personally agree with the team’s arguments.
Format
Debaters are expected to time their own speeches and attend to the order of the speeches. As a general rule the debate will proceed in two stages: (1) Constructives & Cross Examinations and (2) Rebuttal Speeches. Students will be required to debate in teams of two.
Speech Times:
1st Affirmative Speaker: 6 minutes
Cross examination by 2nd Negative Speaker: 4 minutes
1st Negative Speaker: 6 minutes
Cross examination by 1st Affirmative Speaker: 4 minutes
2nd Affirmative Speaker: 6 minutes
Cross examination by 1st Negative Speaker: 4 minutes
2nd Negative Speaker: 6 minutes
Cross examination by 2nd Affirmative speaker: 4 minutes
Preparation time: 2 minutes
Affirmative Rebuttal: 6 minutes
Preparation time: 2 minutes
Negative Rebuttal: 6 minutes
IMPORTANT: Both debaters are expected to give two of the four final rebuttals their team will present over the course of the four preliminary rounds; i.e., one debater on a team should not give all four of the final rebuttals teams will present over the course of the four preliminary rounds.
Rebuttals
The round will conclude with two six minute speeches. (There are no cross examinations after these last two speeches.) During these last two speeches debaters are encouraged to explain to judges why the primary arguments they have presented in their earlier speeches are collectively more persuasive than those of their opponents as regards the core question raised by the topic.
New Arguments in Rebuttals
Judges should discount new arguments presented in the final two speeches. Because the opposing team does not have an opportunity to respond it is important that judges discount new facts, evidence and explanations presented in a team’s last speech of the debate that could have been presented earlier in the debate. Although they may respond to arguments presented by their opponents, debaters are asked in these last two speeches to assess the arguments that have been presented in the earlier speeches rather than presenting new facts, evidence and explanations that could have been presented earlier in the debate.
Interpreting the Topic
You should interpret the burden the topic places on the Affirmative and Negative teams in a manner consistent with the topic statement. Debaters will sometimes attempt to interpret topics in a manner that “tilts” the playing field to their advantage. This approach should be disfavored. If a question of topic interpretation is not resolved by reference to the topic statement, you should adopt a “centrist” interpretation of the topic that allows both teams to engage the core, predictable question you believe raised by the topic and topic statement’s plain language.
Cross Examination
Cross examination is an essential element of the debate format chosen for this weekend’s competition. It is also an element that requires debaters to cooperate in good faith with their opponents to some extent, which may be a complicated proposition in a competitive debate.
Cross examination can be an invaluable tool for moving debates “forward” by establishing undisputed facts, clarifying areas of agreement, isolating areas of dispute, and allowing rigorous examination of opposing arguments. Cross examinations may be far less productive, however, if debaters waste cross examination time so as to avoid having their arguments clarified and scrutinized by answering questions that haven’t been asked, filibustering, and otherwise failing to directly and succinctly answer questions to the extent possible. In such cases, debates may even become hostile as cross examiners may be forced to talk over their opponent to prevent their opponent from dominating the cross examination period.
For these reasons, when determining the winning team and assigning speaker points judges should favor debaters who respond to questions directly and succinctly to the extent possible and disfavor debaters who consistently fail to do so. “To the extent possible” is an essential qualifier to this requirement. Debaters should be allowed reasonable time to answer “open” questions or any other questions that cannot be answered in succinct fashion.
Use of Evidence
When necessary to resolve an important point of contention, debaters are encouraged to introduce evidence. The introduction of evidence is not required and not all arguments require evidence to resolve. But judges should consider whether the introduction of evidence would have strengthened debaters' key arguments and/or materially assisted in resolving disputed key points when determining which team did the better debating.
If debaters choose to introduce evidence, they should be prepared to email an electronic copy to their opponents that includes a complete citation (author, source, date, at minimum) and quotes supporting portions of the source (full paragraphs) such that their opponents might confirm whether the source supports the claim(s) for which it is being offered.
Debaters introducing evidence are expected to be able to share this evidence with their opponents quickly and efficiently without materially delaying the debate round; i.e., debaters introducing evidence should take up hardcopies with them while speaking and be ready to hand this evidence to the other team upon request within seconds of finishing their speech.
Judges should penalize the speaker points of debaters who fail to make their evidence available in a quick and efficient manner such that material opponent cross examination time is wasted and should consider voting against teams in particularly close rounds in which one team's failure to produce their evidence promptly results in material loss of the other's cross examination time to collect evidence and/or egregious instances of delaying rounds to organize evidence.
Responsible Advocacy
All debaters are expected to engage in responsible advocacy. This includes taking responsibility for researching and confirming the claims made in debates. Students that introduce false information–even if by accident and in limited fashion--should be marked down as individual speakers depending on the nature and frequency with which false information has been introduced and this should play a role in assessing which team did the better debating. Any student fabricating evidence or presenting evidence in a manner that distorts its meaning to their advantage should be assigned a loss for the round. Complaints should be lodged after the round with the tournament director and penalties may be assigned retroactively in cases of clear fabrication and/or distortion of evidence.
Equity Statement
While a judge may not consciously privilege the arguments or positions of particular groups of people over others, studies have shown that decisions nevertheless may be influenced by societal biases or prejudices in regards to, inter alia, race and gender. Daniel Kelley and Erica Roedder (2008) have found implicit bias in a number of settings analogous to debate including job hiring practices, grading, and sports officiating. Deborah Tannen (1998) has shown that in the field of competitive argument men are sometimes presumed to be more reasonable and less emotional and that these presumptions may lead a judge to implicitly give more weight to a man’s argument than a woman’s. We therefore ask each judge to consider their implicit biases in evaluating participants’ arguments and performance before making their decision. In addition, in advance of the tournament, participants should familiarize themselves with the GW Student Code of Conduct and the applicable portions of both Title 6 and Title 9.
Additional Instructions for Preliminary Rounds Judges
The championship rounds will be judged by panels of topic experts who will be given the SJD topic, topic statement, and judge handbook provided above. This means that as a prelims judge you are preparing students to debate before topic experts who will be using the published topic, topic statement, and judge handbook to guide their decision making process. Your most important task as a prelims judge is to judge rounds in a manner that prepares the students advancing to elimination rounds to excel in these debates.
Judges are asked to interpret the research questions raised by the topic in a manner consistent with the topic statement. Students are responsible for analyzing the topic and topic statement and understanding the research questions raised for debate. Students may quote from the topic statement as necessary to establish the parameters of the research questions raised by the topic.
Debaters are asked to provide direct, succinct responses to direct questions in cross examination. Filibustering, answering questions that haven’t been asked, and otherwise failing to provide direct, succinct answers to direct questions should result in lower speaker points and--in very close debates--assigning a loss. (Obviously open ended questions may require open answers.)
Students introducing evidence should be ready to provide copies of relevant portions of the introduced sources to their opponents for review upon request.
Speaker points should be assigned on a scale of 90-100 with no ties. Judges should be "reluctant" to give speaker points between 97-100; i.e., absent an exemplary performance reflecting high level research, argumentation, delivery and performance, judges should not give speaker points in this range. "Very Good" performances should receive scores in the 95-96 range. "Good" performances should receive points in the 93-94 range. Performances reflecting a serious lack of preparation or need for obvious improvement should receive scores in the 90-92 range. No ties. Half points are allowed.
Tournament Ombudsperson
Shawky Darwish (GWU ‘22) will serve as tournament ombudsperson. Students may direct questions or concerns to either Shawky or the tournament director. Please feel email him at shawky@gwu.edu or directly contact tournament director Paul S. Hayes via this website.
Dress
The requested dress is business casual.
Fees
Fees are $75/person and $150/hired judge. The judging obligation is four rounds for the first team entered and two rounds for each additional team. Please contact the tournament director regarding fee waiver requests.
Nearby Restaurants
For your convenience during the tournament, we compiled a number of nearby restaurants and cafes that you might enjoy in DC. Those with an asterisk are directly on GWU’s campus.
GCDC, 1730 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20006
Founding Farmers, 1924 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20006
Western Market* (wide selection of restaurants inside), 2000 Pennsylvania Avenue NW #3500, Washington, DC 20006
District House (wide selection of restaurants inside), 2121 H St NW, Washington, DC 20052
Campus North Starbucks*, 900 23rd St NW, DC 20037
Campus South Starbucks*, 1959 E St NW, Washington, DC 20052
Surfside, 1800 N St NW, Washington, DC 20036
Duke’s Grocery (not a grocery), 2000 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20006
Tonic*, 2036 G St. NW, Washington, DC 20036
Panera*, located within the University Student Center 800 21st St NW, Washington, DC 20052
Magic Gourd*, 528 23rd St NW, Washington, DC 20037
Flower Child (vegan and vegetarian heaven), 2112 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20037
