Dalton News

Dalton Debate Teams Put a Perfect Finish on a Perfect Season

Last weekend, Dalton's middle and high school debate teams gathered at 89th Street to compete in the New York City and New York State Championships, respectively, and walked away with a mountain of honors topped off by a championship title.
Going into the NYC Championship, Dalton's middle school debate team had taken first place at every single tournament this year. So the question on everybody's mind was whether they could repeat the feat at their toughest tournament yet.

Qualifying for the NY State Forensic League's Championship is not easy, but ten high school students managed it and prepared to debate whether Japan should revise the ninth article of its constitution to allow the development of offensive military capabilities. The same topic was debated just one week earlier by Leo Yu '23 and Shreya Saravanan '25, who represented Dalton at the National Tournament of Champions. Shreya and Leo returned alongside their teammates Anysa Bickici '25, Arav Mehta '25, Aminata Diallo '25, Miriam Dube '25, Anna Levin '24, Hannah Wang '25, Annika Jha '24, and Zach Berg '24 for the first day of online competition.

After five rounds of competition on five topics at the middle school championship, the two still-undefeated teams were announced. Both were from Dalton. The topic of their showdown: whether voting ought to be compulsory in US general elections. Arguing in favor: Simon Smith '26 and Kavi Mittal '26. Arguing against: Austin Gordon '26, Campbell Langdon '26, and Zeran Li '26. These students made their preparations while in The Martin Theater; the debate teams of nine schools gathered to watch, along with Dalton's high school team, who came to support the middle school students after completing their rounds for the day.

The top two teams made their preparations and stepped on stage to determine the NYC Champions for the 2021-22 season.

Simon opened the debate by laying out two problems with our democracy: First, it's the rich who vote most consistently, and politicians know this and act accordingly. Second, when turnout is weak, the easiest path to victory is extremism because nothing gets voters to show up quite as well as fear. Universal voting would force politicians to focus on persuading the middle rather than inflaming the fringe and listening to the struggling majority instead of a rich minority.

Austin pointed out that turnout could be made much higher by the simple expedients of instituting an election holiday and better funding for the election system. Once voting is easy, he said, the only people choosing not to vote are those who rate themselves uninformed, and why should they have to vote over their own objections?

In response, Kavi posed the big question of the round: "What, exactly, is a 'low-quality vote'?" he demanded to know. Democracy is a contest of subjective values, and how can we say whose values ought to govern the country, except by holding an election? 

Campbell took up the challenge. "A low-quality vote," he warned, "looks like voting for a racist, a sexist, or a homophobe." He further pointed out that holiday or not, election day would mean lost income for anyone paid by the hour.

Zeran continued the opposition, redrawing the line between people who want to vote but cannot and those who truly do not want to. Among the latter, surveys find minimal political knowledge. Zeran noted that if forced to vote, they would be susceptible to manipulation by exactly the wealthy minority that his opponents sought to check by making voting compulsory.

Simon closed the debate by returning to the issue of our ever-more-extreme body politic. The opposition had warned about demagoguery, but Simon observed that when turnout is 100%, demagogues cannot use fear to increase turnout any further. He argued that his opponents stood for a short-sighted deal, worrying about the price of a single election holiday when the alternative was plutocratic politics forever.

The debate was close, a mark of extreme skill on both sides. After nearly 20 minutes of deliberation, the judging panel voted 3-2 for Austin, Campbell, and Zeran, making them the new league champions. So the middle school debate team won its sixth consecutive tournament and its second consecutive championship.

There were still more honors that evening: Sam Worthington '26 was the top-ranked speaker out of the entire field. Campbell came in third, Austin and Zeran tied for fourth, and Annika Maduraperuma '26 came in ninth. She and her teammates Sam Kaplan '26 and Shreya Ranjan '26 were 4-1 in preliminary debates, coming very close indeed to the final round. Overall, Dalton had both the most wins (25) and the highest win rate (71%) of any school in attendance. This was thanks to the combined efforts of the entire MS team: Camille Davis '27, Celine Ellis '27, Emily Eng '27, Hugo Appen '27, Jack Yang '27, Logan Fleissig '27, Madeleine Fine '27, Matt Stewart '27, Annika Maduraperuma '26, Austin Gordon 26, Campbell Langdon '26, Kavi Mittal '26, Liam Gaspar '26, Lylah Patel '26, Sam Kaplan '26, Sam Worthington '26, Shreya Ranjan '26, Simon Smith '26, and Zeran Li '26.

On Sunday, the competition continued at the high school level. Aminata and Miriam advanced into the first round of the elimination bracket in the novice division. Arav and Anysa continued onwards to the quarterfinal, and Arav was the 8th speaker overall. Annika and Zach made it to the semifinal in the varsity division, a new record for Dalton's varsity debaters at the state championship.

Leo and Shreya will go on to represent Dalton at the very last tournament of the year, the National Championship in Kentucky, this June. Otherwise, this golden weekend was the end of a very long road, and each debate – won or lost – bears the indelible stamp of true devotion.

The debate teams also owe a debt of special gratitude to everyone at Dalton who supported them: to our facilities, maintenance, and security staff for hosting more than 100 guests; to every single Dalton parent who volunteered to judge debates or feed hungry debaters; and to our high school debaters for spending weeks and weeks coaching the middle school debaters to lead them to their part of this incredible victory.
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(Grades K-3) 53 East 91st Street
New York, NY 10128
General: (212) 423-5200 | Admissions: (212) 423-5463
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(Gr. 4 Dalton East & PE Center) 200 East 87th Street
New York, NY 10128
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(Grade 5-12) 108 East 89th Street
New York, NY 10128
General: (212) 423-5200 | Admissions: (212) 423-5262
General: info@dalton.org | Admissions: admissionsmshs@dalton.org