Public Forum Should Select Energy, Not Border Surveillance

Voters shouldn't be coerced by camps into supporting a topic that will inevitably encourage racist arguments.

On July 25th, voting will open for the September/October Public Forum debate topic. The public will have two options–

Option 1: Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially expand its surveillance infrastructure along its southern border.

Option 2: Resolved: The United Mexican States should substantially increase private sector participation in its energy industry.

It is clear that the topic committee saw value in ensuring that the September/October topic would center on debates around Mexico, which we’re excited about - however, the difference between the two topics is stark. Topic Option 1 not only centers conversations and debates about Mexico on the United States, but also casts Latin American immigrants as threats needing surveillance and characterizes the border as a zone of violence in need of securitization. Topic Option 2 is the first time that the word “Mexican” appears in a Public Forum debate topic, which requires students to learn about an issue they have almost certainly not thought about, and challenges them to decenter the United States as the key international actor. We believe the choice is clear. 

While many other camps have decided to use Option 1, VBI has decided to use the energy topic for our camps until the September/October topic is officially announced on August 1st. We strongly urge the debate community to vote that way this summer. 

This article explains our thinking about the topic selection process, outlines our concerns about the surveillance topic, offers our arguments in favor of the energy topic, and concludes with some free resources for others to use.

Camps Don’t Determine the Topic & They Shouldn’t Try

Each summer, after the topic committee releases the options for September/October, leaders of most major camps–many of whom are on that committee–collectively discuss which of the options to use for their programs. 

In theory, that discussion could provide an opportunity to gauge the opinions of other community leaders and stress-test the case for each option with other experienced coaches. However, some clearly approach this process with a profoundly undemocratic disposition, believing their choice is akin to selecting a topic for the whole country. In practice, these discussions resemble collusion rather than collaboration. Typically, a frontrunner is settled on with little meaningful discussion, and a band-wagoning dynamic quickly takes hold. Even when disagreement is present, it fades quickly as camps feel the pressure to fall in line or risk choosing incorrectly, thus depriving students of the chance at a head start for the fall. This results in a first-mover advantage with a perverse incentive to announce a topic quickly and short-circuit ongoing conversations to “lock in” their preferred choice. 

Most of the time, this all happens with little to no controversy. Usually, there is a clear frontrunner in the broader community, and both options would be broadly acceptable if chosen. 

This year is different. There is deep and strongly felt disagreement in the community. A substantial slice of debaters and coaches are, for good reason, profoundly uncomfortable with the surveillance topic. 

VBI is no exception; we’ve certainly felt this pressure. This summer, after it was clear other camps were planning to do the same, we initially announced to the students at our Philadelphia session that we’d use Option 1. However, after more research and reflection, we came to believe that the surveillance topic would result in less educational debates, likely to cause unnecessary harm (see next section). 

While we respect some camps' decisions to briefly gauge community feedback and public opinion before announcing a topic, we simply believe that the public wasn’t given enough time to fully develop arguments for either side and effectively voice their concerns.

At the very least, this time around, a more thorough and deliberative process is necessary before allowing a false consensus to form. 

At the same time, despite the widespread perception of their influence, we also question how important camps really are to the topic-selection process: while there is undoubtedly a perception that voters will inevitably prefer the topic picked by camps, causality likely works in the opposite direction. 

Only a tiny fraction of debaters and coaches attend debate camp each summer. Camps' power in the process is swamped by the vast majority of programs that have no interest in what they are doing.

Public Forum topics tend to win in landslides. It seems much more plausible that the topic selection of camps simply reflects that, in most years, there has been a clearly superior topic and community consensus. 

Option 1 is not a fait accompli. As the following sections demonstrate, the energy topic is better, and real rounds at VBI are proving that. We urge students and coaches to truly engage with the arguments and vote for the topic they want to spend their fall debating, not simply the topic they used this summer or that feels more likely to be chosen at the moment. 

Against Surveillance

We have major substantive concerns about the first topic option. We believe that picking this topic will result in far too many rounds containing racist and xenophobic arguments. 

While it might be possible to debate immigration respectfully, we think this topic lends itself to arguments that demonize or dehumanize immigrants themselves. This will be the first topic that novices will debate and that new judges will judge this year. Despite best intentions, these two groups will have the least capacity to have or evaluate a nuanced debate about immigration that avoids harmful assumptions or arguments–and when debates do get heated, they will be ill-prepared to handle the ensuing conversations. 

Some claim that using the surveillance topic will enable camps to prepare debaters to engage with this topic in an acceptable way. This smacks of hubris. The idea that what happens at a few camps can inoculate debates nationwide from themes that are the main thrust of the topic literature is completely implausible. Even if such a thing were possible, we are deeply skeptical it can be accomplished in a camp environment where many students are learning to debate for the first time, and others are subject to intense competitive pressures. This is particularly true given the current political environment, which might only become more toxic as the election nears.

The fact that immigration is a hot-button issue in the upcoming election has been pointed to as a positive. The increased salience of the topic has led to a large increase in media coverage, and there will certainly be no shortage of literature to draw from. This argument views Immigration as primarily a question of politics, divorced from the real-world consequences border policies on actual people. We are troubled by the cynical invocation of migrants as literal pawns in an ongoing election and we should not expose students to some of their first debates about immigration with that explicit framing. 

Further, anyone who has followed either major candidates’ stances on the issue will realize that there is not much of a debate. Trump has promised to deport 20 million immigrants, and Biden has attempted to outflank him, pushing for more border patrol and tougher asylum laws. A common theme in June's presidential debate was the demonization of immigrants as violent criminals and terrorists. With the Overton window shifted so far to the right, there is no shortage of articles^[1] making the case for mass deportation and calling immigrants illegal aliens, terrorists, and criminals. It’s inevitable that debaters will read, cite, and parrot these talking points, even if unintentionally. Also, relying on the election as core ground is a fool's errand. Given the chaos of the last few weeks, the idea that we can comfortably make any prediction about what the election might look like in September strikes us as naive. 

One defense of Option 1 is that debaters can “creatively defend the topic” to avoid making racist or xenophobic arguments. Defenders cite examples like “affs about surveilling against antimicrobial resistance, disease, and various kinds of trafficking” or “more surveillance infrastructure is necessary to protect human rights of migrants.” All of these examples stray far from the core of the existing literature and prevailing political debates, which both center surveillance as means of reducing migration. We believe the aff shouldn’t have to skirt actually defending the topic to argue ethically: even its strongest defenders seem to concede that the closer one comes to defending the core of the topic, the more racist arguments become. What more is there to say?

The defense’s appeal to disease and trafficking leads us to believe that what defenders have identified as the core of the topic is inextricable from the stereotypes that are used to paint Latin American immigrants as an invading threat. It is hard to avoid the sense that Option 1 is an appeal to the migrant caravans invoked as boogeymen in the lead-up to the 2018, 2020, 2022, and likely, 2024 elections.  

“Neither the pro or con side is permitted to offer a plan or counterplan… Debaters may offer generalized, practical solutions.”

This is a quote from the NSDA event rules for Public Forum debate in the High School Unified Manual 2023-2024. So, affirmatives that attempt to creatively defend the topic by advocating for a very specific type of surveillance that doesn’t demonize immigrants are at odds with the rules governing the activity. 

The affirmative won’t be able to skirt the issue by saying that they aren’t defending a plan but rather how the resolution would likely be implemented. Both presidential candidates are more concerned about looking tough on the topic of immigration than about the well-being of the humans that are crossing the border or finding real solutions to problems with the immigration system that respect the dignity of all. So, if the US were to expand its surveillance infrastructure along its southern border substantially, it likely wouldn’t be intended to help those who are crossing the border, and the topic literature does not feature any meaningful interrogation of what form future border policy should take. 

Given all of the above, we are uncomfortable taking the bet that “the meta will inevitably shift to a good middle ground of unique and nuanced debates”–particularly given the topic’s defenders’ insistence that the middle ground will land in the heat of an electoral cycle. Taking the topic’s defenders at their word, the best version of Option 1 promises two months of recycled election disadvantages, racist tropes, and AMR impact defense. We think that would be a shame when presented with a competing option that provides an opportunity to delve into international energy policy for the first time in years and take the perspective of another country. We hope that the intellectual curiosity of the community matches the confidence of Option 1’s defenders. 

For Energy

In early discussions on the September/October topic options, a few concerns were advanced about the energy topic. After three weeks of preparation and debates on Mexican energy at VBI, not only are we convinced these concerns are misplaced, but we are confident that the energy topic is stronger than its alternative on every front. 

The first concern suggests the energy topic is too obscure and pushes away novices. However, there’s little evidence to suggest difficult-to-parse topics have meaningfully affected Public Forum participation rates–PF remains the largest NSDA event despite a slew of complex September-October topics. If the European Union’s funding of the Belt and Road Initiative, US military presence in the Arctic, and United Nations Convention of the Law of the Seas were not enough to deter novices, it seems like a non-issue in the case of a straightforward private versus public sector debate. 

In fact, the energy topic possesses many qualities that the community traditionally values for novice retention–it has easily intelligible core arguments concerning energy prices and carbon emissions that are both easy to research and explain, keeping the barrier of entry low for novices in their first debates. On the judging end, the topic de-emphasizes American politics that could charge lay judges’ decisions. Were the surveillance topic to win, the necessary elections arguments and focus on the Southern border will inevitably lead to judges inserting themselves in RFDs, discouraging novices in their very first debates. 

Proponents of the surveillance topic cite concerns about novice retention, but which novices are we trying to attract or retain? We want debaters that are curious about the world around them, and are eager to learn more about countries and cultures unknown to them. The first topic for a novice sets the tone for what it means to engage with debate and the topic. Promoting genuine engagement with Mexico’s internal politics over a securitizing, potentially xenophobic resolution would seem to attract, grow, and retain the kind of tolerant and inquisitive students that we need in debate. On the other hand, the way that the surveillance topic would train debaters to debate would likely be through dehumanization, fear-mongering, and centering US interests above all others. While every topic worth debating in some way will touch on the real experiences of some students, a line is crossed when a resolution encourages the demonization of groups to which many students either belong or to which they have deep connections

Debaters are also concerned with the energy topic’s political relevance, arguing that the border topic is ‘ripped straight from the headlines’ and will be conducive to more interesting and active uniqueness updates. This ignores that Mexico is hardly a month removed from one of its most surprising election results ever: domination by the Morena party, with President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum set to take office mid-topic in October, not to mention the host of serious energy reforms (including a constitutional amendment) that are being pushed through by the lame-duck, President López Obrador. Meanwhile, American election headlines are dominated by an endless stream of unpredictable events that can scarcely be connected to the border topic: frontlining politics scenarios will be untenable in the face of the Trump assassination attempt, Biden’s reputational decline, Biden contracting COVID, or the inevitable October surprises. The amount of political information pouring out of Mexico concerning energy dwarfs any meaningful electoral focus on the Southern border in the US.

Finally, the primary concern advanced against the energy topic is negative ground. At VBI’s first session in Philadelphia, 52.36% of the camp tournament rounds were won by the negative, with a rough fifty-fifty split in speaker order. Many negative arguments have emerged through the research and debating process, including, but not limited to the following:

• Indigenous displacement – Private energy companies have a history of exploiting indigenous lands in Mexico for the purposes of both oil drilling and green technology excavations, forcing people from their ancestral lands. 

• Political unrest – President-elect Sheinbaum and her Morena party hold a functional supermajority that will enable Sheinbaum to continue the policies of her predecessor, Obrador. However, should she deviate from party continuity and privatize energy, she will face backlash–and potential removal from office–by party politicians. Moreover, since the general public views energy sovereignty as fundamental to the Mexican state, potentially devastating political unrest is possible as well. 

• Government Revenue – PEMEX is a major source of revenue for the Mexican government, and Sheinbaum has even touted plans to refinance PEMEX’s debt, giving it the chance to massively expand its operations. However, increasing private participation in the energy sector will decrease PEMEX’s earnings, resulting in negative impacts to social spending, security programs, and more.

• Energy Access – If allowed to enter Mexico’s market, private companies have incentives to massively raise electricity prices for profit, be it through monopolization or exploitative contracts with desperate local populations. While public Mexican utilities have made overtures to electrify rural areas, private companies may reverse this progress and focus on routing power to a handful of urban centers they can up-charge. 

• Renewable energy – President-elect Sheinbaum has serious plans to shift Mexico’s state-owned energy towards renewable sources. However, privatizing Mexico’s energy sector could result in profit-driven private companies reversing this progress, disrupting vulnerable Mexican ecosystems and land with an excess of fracking rigs, mineral mines, and more. 

• Cartels – To secure land for drilling purposes, private companies often enlist the services of cartels with large sums in backroom security deals. These cartels, empowered by the new landowners, carry out violence on a large-scale, displacing thousands from their homes and funding other illicit activities in the region. 

For those interested in learning more about these arguments, click here to read through a selection of evidence prepared by VBI staff. 

With contributions from Cale McCrary, Rodrigo Paramo, Jonah Sah, Nick Smith, Chris Theis, Cherie Wang, and Vivian Yellen