Stuyvesant’s Speech and Debate Team Competes at the 2025 Yale Invitational

Yuna Lee is a Copy Editor for The Spectator.

Stuyvesant’s Speech and Debate (S&D) Team kicked off their season at the 2025 Yale Invitational—an immensely prestigious national tournament—in New Haven, Connecticut from September 17 to September 19. For three days, over a thousand competitors across the country came together to participate in pre-elimination rounds and spectate elimination rounds of those that advanced.

Stuyvesant competed in 11 different speech and debate formats, with notable performances in each category. These results were achieved through extensive practice and dedication. “The majority of speech competitors who went to Yale spent time over the summer working on their pieces, and even then, it took a lot of practice after school and even over the weekend to be ready for competition,” senior and Speech Co-Captain Amanda Greenberg said in an email interview.

At this tournament, Lincoln-Douglas debaters argued the resolution, “Resolved: In the United States Criminal Justice System, plea bargaining is just.” This topic sparked much controversy with its wording and unexpected difference from previous resolutions. “Usually, our topics have the affirmative defend a change from the status quo and the negative either defend the status quo or critique the affirmative, but this topic has the affirmative defend that plea bargaining is just in the status quo,” senior and Lincoln-Douglas Debate Captain Yuna Lee said in an email interview. “As a result of this weird wording, debates focused on the U.S. federal government passing a policy sort of left the meta, which was a challenge for our team to overcome, since most of the sophomores and juniors specialize in this style of debate.”

However, this stylistic change also brought about a wave of controversies regarding the topic. “I have many, many gripes with this topic, namely that it’s incredibly racist,” Lee said. “For example, police have arrest quotas to fill, and they typically go to low-income or high-minority concentration towns to make these arrests. Many statistical studies also prove that non-minority defendants are more likely to be let off with a lesser sentence (or get a better bargain) than minority Americans, and, even if taken to trial, minority Americans are less likely to win due to less access to lawyers and biased juries.”

In the Public Forum section, students argued whether the United Kingdom (UK) should rejoin the European Union (EU), which differed from their usual topics revolving around the United States. “For context, following Brexit (the withdrawal of the UK from the EU) in 2020, there has been controversy over whether the UK government has made good on its promises to citizens for post-Brexit prosperity,” senior and Debate President Annie Li said in an email interview. “It’s always interesting for me when we have a topic centered around a different country [or] body as we usually debate from the standpoint of the U.S. government, so it was really refreshing to debate this topic.”

Stuyvesant’s Policy Team also performed notably well, with each team defeating over half of their competition. “[Juniors] Luca Nedelkovic and Ken Wakida were 4-2 in [the preliminary rounds]. [Seniors] Serenity Dingwall, Amy Shrestha, Kassandra Sinchi, and I were also all 4-2 in prelims and advanced to elimination rounds. [Dingwall] and [Shrestha] got to quarterfinals, and [Sinchi] and I got to semifinals. [Dingwall] was also ranked the eighth speaker across the entire division,” senior and Policy Captain Rahul Kissoon said in an email interview.

Working with the logistical details of attending the tournament was not a simple feat. The S&D team had been experiencing issues regarding their budget and funding since last year, making the trip much more difficult to plan. “Budget constraints and a not-incredibly-responsive administration make it difficult for the team to attend as many national tournaments as we want, [and] national tournaments are really where we’ve had the most success and the most educational experiences, especially for the younger [Lincoln-Douglas debaters],” Lee said.

With Yale being not only the first tournament of the year but also one that happens only two weeks into the school year, it becomes challenging for the leaders and Speech and Debate Coach Julie Sheinman to prepare. “I think Yale is always a tournament that’s a bit of a bumpy road to plan for,” Li said. “However, the team and especially our director, Ms. Sheinman, really came together and rallied to make this trip happen [and] smooth out all these kinks, and we could not be more grateful.”

The Yale Invitational also stood out as a special moment for the team due to the shared experiences that brought everyone closer. “Yale is traditionally our first tournament of the year, and it's on the national circuit, so it’s the grand kickoff to the season,” Greenberg said. “As a senior, this is my last year on the team, so I really enjoyed visiting the campus with my teammates again. The bonding between teammates made Yale the most special.”

Kissoon shared a similar sentiment. “Our team had a lot of fun together. We went out for lunch and dinner together every day, reunited with one of our past alumni, and played card games after rounds,” Kissoon said. 

Ultimately, the Yale Invitational served as an excellent introduction to the season, with a strong combination of both top-tier debating and a new sense of team unity. Additionally, the team just welcomed a new class of novices eager to learn and compete. “We can’t wait to connect with them, help them begin their debate career, and keep winning,” Kissoon said.

The Stuyvesant Speech and Debate Team looks ahead to the rest of the season with excitement and ambition. “We could not be more excited to continue our decades-long mission of fostering family through mentorship while teaching the next generation all the ways in which to use their voices for what they're passionate about,” Li said.