September Update from UR Debate

Published
October 9, 2026
One person has their arm around another while posing for the camera with a desk, TV, and trophy in the background.
Liam and Haleigh between rounds at the Online SJD Opener

The debate season started off well this past month with two competitions, the Social Justice Debates Online Opener and the Binghamton University Policy Regional Opener.

Brand new college debater Haleigh and her partner Liam, who was new to debate entirely, jumped in to compete online against a difficult field of teams in the Social Justice Debates Online Opener. The topic this year is “Food Justice” and poses whether we should prioritize food sovereignty (control over the production and distribution of food) over fulfilling a right to food for every individual. Haleigh and Liam, despite this being their first college tournament (and Liam’s first at all) won one of their Affirmative debates. We’re looking forward to Haleigh and Liam doing big things with the URDU in the future.

A person smiles at the camera from behind a laptop while sitting at a table.
Emily Gives two big thumbs up after winning a round at Binghamton

Our second competition is a longstanding tradition for us – the Binghamton University Regional Opener for Policy debate. Returning debater Emily and new college debater Rahul put up an amazing performance, only dropping ballots to one team the whole tournament (once in prelims and then again in finals!) They made the URDU proud, finishing as finalists. Emily was also ranked 7th speaker, and Rahul was ranked 5th – at his first college tournament ever.

October also started out well here in Rochester with our Meliora Weekend alumni reception. An alumni panel of Ben Wittwer (‘07), Sarah Fletcher (‘08), and Ahmed Kassim (‘96) spoke and answered questions about how debate has helped them professionally, and a great conversation about the value of debate as an activity was had. We’re thankful these alums could give their time to have that discussion and provide our current URDUers some glimpses into their possible futures.

The URDU debates on! We look forward to traveling to Rutgers University, the US Military Academy, and Yale University over the next couple of weeks! Go Yellowjackets!