The November 4 elections reminded us just how divided America remains. Democrats pulled a string of victories only a year after Republicans dominated the polls, showing that our nation remains fiercely polarized.
Some argue that the answer to our division is better communication and more free speech — but that’s not the root of the problem. Censorship is real, but we are awash in speech, drowning in ever-more posts, podcasts, and shouting online or in the streets. Quantity of speech is not our problem; quality is.
Specifically, what we need is rightly ordered speech, the kind that teaches citizens how to listen, reason, and disagree without rancor.
At least since the dawn of the internet era, we have confused volume for virtue, slogans for insight, and opinion for understanding. But the kind of speech that strengthens civic life requires more than cleverness or emotion; it requires proper intellectual, moral, and spiritual formation.
Here, education is decisive. It is not enough to teach children to “voice their opinion” or to “speak their truth.” They must be trained in the art of civil dialogue with the ability to understand the opposition’s point of view, no matter how much they may personally disagree.
Traditionally, almost every high school and college in America has had a program to cultivate these intellectual and moral virtues called the speech and debate club. Yet like so many institutions in our civic life, speech and debate organizations have become ideologically captured and obsessed with political purity.
Case in point: In 2023, the National Speech and Debate Association withdrew its high school debate resolution about civil disobedience because it “was putting new students in a position to argue or listen to arguments that are not aligned with their own beliefs about issues of social equity and justice.”
Organizers not only wouldn’t dare ask students to make the best case for a position they disagree with — they didn’t even want students to hear such opinions. Is it any wonder that generations of Americans go into a fit of rage when contradicted? If even the students specially trained to debate can’t learn to disagree, then our entire civic structure will continue to crumble.
Thankfully, alternative institutions and educational models have stepped into this intellectual void.
On an institutional level, investor James Fishback founded Incubate Debate to restore classical debate principles to the national stage. Incubate Debate emphasizes substance over intellectual coddling. It doesn’t hide from controversy; it embraces it, demanding that participants engage respectfully with ideas and not demonize their opponents.
Individually, students in more rigorous and expansive academic environments like classical schools are dominating the debate stage because they are comfortable contending with uncomfortable thoughts.
For example, freshmen at Hillsdale College, which prioritizes classical education and intellectual freedom, won first place at the Tournament and Conference of Scholars debate championship, besting their peers from schools that silence and censor “uncomfortable” ideas.
Meanwhile, students from the classical Patrick Henry College won first and second place in the civic debate competition of the storied Lafayette Debates a few years ago, outshining Ivy League students and others from across the country.
These aren’t one-off stories. The Academy of Classical Christian Studies in Oklahoma won the state debate championship in 2024. A student from the Classical Christian Academy in Springfield, Missouri, was a finalist and scholarship recipient in last year’s Great Communicator Debate Series National Championship put on by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation. Classical school students regularly win top marks at the National Speech and Debate Tournament — all this even though classical schools represent a small fraction of the educational institutions in America.
This isn’t just about winning trophies. The overrepresentation of classically trained students winning top speech and debate competitions reveals that ordered speech is alive and well, at least in small pockets of our nation. These students are proof that rigorous, character-building debate education works, and that we can indeed teach the next generation to contend with controversy and not melt down when someone disagrees with them.
It may be too much to hope that classical school debate societies will restore the quality of speech in America. But they do show that decline is not inevitable. We shouldn’t resign ourselves to raising up another generation of ideologues and screaming protestors who say a lot of words but have little substance behind them.
With the right education, America can cultivate young people who don’t just speak freely, but debate and disagree well.
Jeremy Wayne Tate is the founder and CEO of the Classic Learning Test (CLT), a humanities-focused alternative to the SAT and ACT tests.
Read more on AMAC – The Association of Mature American Citizens
