URDU Hosts Brad Smith Memorial Debates

UR Debate hosted schools from across the country on February 26-27 for its first home tournament since we lost longtime supporter Brad Smith.

On February 26-27 the UR Debate Union hosted schools from across the country in the first annual Brad Smith Memorial Debates. Three tournaments ran concurrently: CEDA Northeast Regionals and the District 8 NDT Qualifier for Policy Debate, and a Spring Warm-Up for the Social Justice Debates. Congratulations go out to all the teams, and especially to: the US Military Academy for winning the Regional Championship; the University of Vermont for winning the Regional Novice Championship; Morehouse College for winning the Social Justice Spring Warm-Up Championship; and teams from Binghamton, the New School, and Boston College who qualified for the National Debate Tournament.

Additional thanks to our expert final round judges for the Social Justice Debates Warm-up: Rochester City Councilmember Stanley Martin, author and activist Reenah Golden, and educator and activist John Whelehan. These community members made enriched our final round with their first-hand knowledge of urban education and movements for reform.

As always, we had some great debates, and we're thankful that we were able to have them largely IN-PERSON here on campus! We look forward to resuming much more in-person debating in weeks and months to come!