Cross Examination Debate Association

Cross Examination Debate Association
Nonprofit organization, policy debate
Founded 1971
Headquarters United States
Key people
 Amber Kelsie, President[1]
Website cedadebate.org

The Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) (/ˈsiːdə/ SEE-də) is the largest intercollegiate policy debate association in the United States. Throughout the school year, CEDA sanctions over 60 tournaments throughout the nation, including an annual National Championship Tournament that brings together over 175 individual debate teams from across the nation to compete on the basis of research, persuasive speaking, argumentation, and philosophy.

History

Founded in 1971 as the Southwest Cross Examination Debate Association, CEDA is now the primary national association promoting policy topic intercollegiate academic debate. In cooperation with the National Debate Tournament Committee and the American Debate Association, CEDA formulates the annual intercollegiate policy debate topic used in tournament competition throughout the nation.

CEDA acts as a tournament sanctioning agent, providing through its Constitution and By-Laws a framework for normalizing tournament practices and procedures. Throughout the tournament season, CEDA calculates the National Sweepstakes Standings, the national and regional rankings of member institutions based on compiled tournament results.

CEDA also functions as a professional association for scholars and teachers in the field of applied argumentation and debate. In addition to sponsoring scholarly programs on issues of interest to association members at the annual convention of the National Communication Association, CEDA has organized two indigenous scholarly assessment conferences: The 1991 St. Paul 20th Anniversary Assessment Conference, and the 2001 Tahoe Conference on Academic Debate. CEDA and the NDT co-sponsored a third professional conference, The 2009 National Developmental Conference at Wake Forest University. The 2009 Conference was directed by Dr. Allan Louden of Wake Forest University. The conference proceedings were edited by Louden and published by the International Debate Education Association Press as Navigating Opportunity: Policy Debate in the 21st Century.

CEDA also publishes Contemporary Argumentation and Debate: The Journal of the Cross Examination Debate Association, a refereed scholarly journal that serves as the primary outlet for monographs and essays addressing issues related to the theory and practice of academic debate. The journal is edited by Dr. Jennifer Bevan of Chapman University and Dr. Gordon Stables of the University of Southern California.

For a number of years, CEDA employed a two-person team value debate format. CEDA utilized two topics each year, one governing the Fall Semester and the second governing the Spring Semester. For the Spring 1996 topic, it was voted[2] to continue debating the fall topic about Mexico. Beginning with the 1996-1997 season, however, CEDA has employed a single, year-long policy debate topic.

In 1996, the NDT and the American Debate Association agreed to employ the CEDA topic during their seasons, effectively unifying the organizations.

Controversy

In the 2013 tournament, the winning team from Emporia State University was criticized for using personal memoirs and rap music to criticize white privilege during the debate.[3][4] Opponents to this form of debate argue that rhetorical tools utilized by recent championship teams violated the anti-harassment policies of CEDA and the National Debate Tournament and common sense.[5] CEDA President Paul Mabrey points to the value of limited actual formal rules in CEDA debate and the ways that a variety of forms of debate raise the educational value of the activity and call these objections "nothing other than thinly-veiled racism."[6]

In 2014, despite winning the tournament, the winning team from Towson University was criticized by these observers for referencing racial slurs. In the wake of this controversy, CEDA President Paul Mabrey stated in an official CEDA video of that the accusations of poor preparation and incomprehensibility “...[R]epresent the worst of our human bigotry. These attacks on Towson, Oklahoma, and others in our debate community are motivated by racism and fear.”[6]

National Tournament results

Debate topics

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
Academic YearTopic
1970s
1971–1972Resolved: That the US should withdraw its ground combat forces from bases located outside the Western Hemisphere.
1972 FallResolved: That the penal system in the US should be significantly improved.
1973 SpringResolved: That the US should seek to restore normal diplomatic and economic relations with the present government of Cuba.
1973 FallResolved: That “victimless crimes” should be legalized.
1974 SpringResolved: That the US should reduce its commitment to Israel.
1974 FallResolved: That the federal government should grant amnesty to all those who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War.
1975 SpringResolved: That American television has sacrificed quality for entertainment.
1975–1976Resolved: That education has failed its mission in the US.
1976–1977Resolved: That legal protection of accused persons in the US unnecessarily hinders law enforcement agencies.
1977–1978Resolved: That Affirmative Action promotes deleterious hiring practices.
1978–1979Resolved: That the US policy significantly directed toward the furtherance of human rights is desirable.
1979–1980Resolved: That compulsory national service for all qualified US citizens is desirable.
1980s
1980 FallResolved: That protection of the national environment is a more important goal than the satisfaction of American energy demands.
1981 SpringResolved: That activism in politics by religious groups harms the American political process
1981 FallResolved: That unauthorized immigration into the US is seriously detrimental to the US.
1982 SpringResolved: That the American judicial system has overemphasized the rights of the accused.
1982 FallResolved: That a unilateral freeze by the US on the production and development of nuclear weapons would be desirable.
1983 SpringResolved: That individual rights of privacy are more important than any other Constitutional right.
1983 FallResolved: That US higher education has sacrificed quality for institutional survival.
1984 SpringResolved: That federal government censorship is justified to defend the national security of the US.
1984 FallResolved: That the method of conducting presidential elections in the US is detrimental to democracy.
1985 SpringResolved: That the US is justified in providing military support to nondemocratic governments.
1985 FallResolved: That significant government restrictions on coverage by US media of terrorist activity are justified.
1986 SpringResolved: That membership in the UN is no longer beneficial to the US.
1986 FallResolved: That improved relations with the Soviet Union are a more important objective for the US than increased military preparedness.
1987 SpringResolved: That regulations in the US requiring employees to be tested for controlled substances are an unwarranted invasion of privacy.
1987 FallResolved: That continued US covert involvement in Central America would be undesirable.
1988 SpringResolved: That the American judicial system has overemphasized freedom of the press.
1988 FallResolved: That significantly stronger third party participation in the US presidential elections would benefit the political process.
1989 SpringResolved: That increased restrictions on the civilian possession of handguns in the US would be justified.
1989 FallResolved: That violence is a justified response to political oppression.
1990 SpringResolved: That the trend toward increasing foreign investment in the US is detrimental to this nation.
1990s
1990 FallResolved: That government censorship of public artistic expression in the US is an undesirable infringement of individual rights.
1991 SpringResolved: That the US Supreme Court, on balance, has granted excessive power to law enforcement agencies.
1991 FallResolved: That US colleges and universities have inappropriately altered educational practices to address issues of race or gender.
1992 SpringResolved: That advertising degrades the quality of life in the US.
1992 FallResolved: That the welfare system exacerbates the problems of the urban poor in the United States.
1993 SpringResolved: That the United Nations implementation of its Universal Declaration of Human Rights is more important than preserving state sovereignty.
1993 FallResolved: That the national news media in the United States impair the public's understanding of political issues.
1994 SpringResolved: That United States military intervention to foster democratic government is appropriate in a post-Cold War world.
1994 FallResolved: That throughout the United States, more severe punishment for individuals convicted of violent crime would be desirable.
1995 SpringResolved: That the United States should significantly increase the development of the earth's ocean resources.
1995 FallResolved: That the United States should substantially change its foreign policy towards Mexico.
1996 SpringResolved: That the United States should substantially change its foreign policy towards Mexico. (selected to repeat Fall topic)
2000s
2000–2001Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should substantially increase its development assistance, including increasing government to government assistance, within the Greater Horn of Africa.
2001–2002Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should substantially increase federal control throughout Indian Country in one or more of the following areas: child welfare, criminal justice, employment, environmental protection, gaming, resource management, taxation.
2002–2003Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should ratify or accede to, and implement, one or more of the following:

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; The Kyoto Protocol; The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; The Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aiming at the Abolition of the Death Penalty; The Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions, if not ratified by the United States.

2003–2004Resolved: that the United States Federal Government should enact one or more of the following:

Withdrawal of its World Trade Organization complaint against the European Union's restrictions on genetically modified foods; A substantial increase in its government-to-government economic and/or conflict prevention assistance to Turkey and/or Greece; Full withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; Removal of its barriers to and encouragement of substantial European Union and/or North Atlantic Treaty Organization participation in peacekeeping in Iraq and reconstruction in Iraq; Removal of its tactical nuclear weapons from Europe; Harmonization of its intellectual property law with the European Union in the area of human DNA sequences; Rescission of all or nearly all agriculture subsidy increases in the 2002 Farm Bill.

2004–2005Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should establish an energy policy requiring a substantial reduction in the consumption in the total non-governmental consumption of fossil fuels in the United States.
2005–2006Resolved: The United States Federal government should substantially increase diplomatic and economic pressure on the People's Republic of China in one or more of the following areas: trade, human rights, weapons nonproliferation, Taiwan.
2006–2007Resolved: The United States Supreme Court should overrule one or more of the following decisions: Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 1992); Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942); U.S. v. Morrison, 529 U.S.598 (2000); Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974).
2007–2008Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should increase its constructive engagement with the government of one or more of: Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Syria, and it should include offering them a security guarantee(s) and/or a substantial increase in foreign assistance.
2008–2009Resolved: That the United States Federal Government should substantially reduce its agricultural support, at least eliminating nearly all of the domestic subsidies, for biofuels, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, corn, cotton, dairy, fisheries, rice, soybeans, sugar and/or wheat.
2009–2010Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially reduce the size of its nuclear weapons arsenal, and/or substantially reduce and restrict the role and/or missions of its nuclear weapons arsenal.
2010s
2010–2011Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase the number of and/or substantially expand beneficiary eligibility for its visas for one or more of the following: employment-based immigrant visas, nonimmigrant temporary worker visas, family-based visas, human trafficking-based visas.
2011–2012Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its democracy assistance for one or more of the following: Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen.
2012–2013Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially reduce restrictions on and/or substantially increase financial incentives for energy production in the United States of one or more of the following: coal, crude oil, natural gas, nuclear power, solar power, wind power.
2013–2014Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase statutory and/or judicial restrictions on the war powers authority of the President of the United States in one or more of the following areas: targeted killing; indefinite detention; offensive cyber operations; or introducing United States Armed Forces into hostilities.
2014–2015Resolved: The United States should legalize all or nearly all of one or more of the following in the United States: marijuana, prostitution, online gambling, the sale of human organs, physician assisted suicide.
2015–2016Resolved: The United States should significantly reduce its military presence in one or more of the following: the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, the Greater Horn of Africa, Northeast Asia.
2016–2017Resolved: The United States Federal Government should establish a domestic climate policy, including at least substantially increasing restrictions on private sector emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States.
2017–2018Resolved: The United States Federal Government should establish national health insurance in the United States.
2018- 2019Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase statutory and/or judicial restrictions on the executive power of the President of the United States in one or more of the following areas: authority to conduct first-use nuclear strikes; congressionally delegated trade power; exit from congressional-executive agreements and Article II treaties; judicial deference to all or nearly all federal administrative agency interpretations of statutes and/or regulations; the bulk incidental collection of all or nearly all foreign intelligence information on United States persons without a warrant.

References

  1. ↑ "Officers". Cedadebate.org.
  2. ↑ http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jonathan/debate/ceda-l/archive/CEDA-L-Dec-1995/msg00254.html
  3. ↑ Carew Kraft, Jessica (April 16, 2014). "Hacking Traditional College Debate's White-Privilege Problem". The Atlantic.
  4. ↑ Ferlanda Fox Nixon (March 28, 2013). "Collegiate Debaters Win Two National Championships".
  5. ↑ Soave, Robby (April 20, 2014). "Prepare for outrage: Far left judges allow destruction of college debate clubs because RACISM". The Daily Caller.
  6. 1 2 CEDA Announcement Video. Cross Examination Debate Association. May 12, 2014.
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