By Andrea Grant
Marcela De Souza knows she’s racing against the clock. Her opponent increases his pace as the seconds tick down, the LED lights on the time clock flashing from green to red. She is focused on winning, determined not to concede a single point.
When the judge calls time, De Souza lets up her furious pace and begins a hurried conference with her teammate, Ericka Portillo—not on the basketball court or track, but in a mock courtroom at Suffolk Law. The students, both from Everett High School, are making a case for the United States to cooperate with NATO to increase investment and regulation in biotechnology. It is the final tournament of the year for the Boston Debate League (BDL), and scores of high school debaters have swarmed three of Suffolk University’s largest buildings.
The biotech investment topic is particularly meaningful to De Souza, because it could translate to innovations in medical treatments and expanded equity in health care. “Every case that makes things better and more accessible to everybody is special for me,” she says. “Our team at Everett High School is composed of immigrants and first-generation students, so we always try to debate about topics that really influence our lives.”
After poring over detailed notes on their rival's arguments, De Souza strides to the lectern and lets fly. Speaking in Spanish—this session is part of the Boston Debate League’s Debate en Español division—her response is peppered with data points but carried by emotion, like the closing argument of a courtroom drama played at 1.5 speed.
It’s a winning combination, and the judges award the victory to De Souza and Portillo, who are quick to congratulate their opponent. While the competition is fierce, the debate community is a supportive one, says De Souza, who joined the BDL two years ago.
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Photographs by Michael J. Clarke
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"The best skill that you can have as a debater is not being able to speak, but being able to listen to others."
—David Rivera
She recalls entering her first tournament, unsure of herself and full of anxiety, and quickly finding a second family. “I met new people, I heard feedback to improve, but above all,” she says, “I felt the emotion of finishing a round successfully, happiness that only a debater knows.”
While there are two sides to every debate, the benefits to students are inarguable.
Debaters learn to talk quickly and think even faster. They gain critical thinking, communication, and leadership skills that prepare them for college, careers, and active engagement with the world around them. Studies show competitive debate improves academic performance, raises SAT scores, and boosts graduation rates, especially among those in urban schools. In Chicago, for example, researchers have found that debaters were three times more likely to graduate high school than nondebaters.
Crucially, debate gives students the confidence to know that their voices matter—and so do their futures.
“Debate creates a pathway to success for these students,” says Suffolk University President Marisa Kelly, who serves on the board of directors for the Boston Debate League. “Our commitment to individual students is the same no matter where they come from. But we have a responsibility to help Boston thrive,” she adds, “and that means we have a special obligation to students who are right here.”
Pathway to success
That’s why Suffolk has worked so closely with the BDL, which provides after-school debate opportunities for middle and high school students in greater Boston and teaches educators how to incorporate the principles of debate into their classrooms. For more than a decade, the University has hosted BDL tournaments, and in 2017 it formed a partnership to allow students to compete on campus more regularly and establish a summer debate camp.
Suffolk also partners with BDL to offer students a dual-enrollment college course on the principles of debate. Participants earn college credit, saving them time and money later on; more importantly, the experience helps the students develop a sense of belonging.
“This is about giving them the opportunity to see themselves as college students, and that’s powerful. If not for this experience, many might not have stepped foot on a college campus,” says BDL Executive Director Kim Willingham.
And it gives De Souza and other students, many of whom will be the first in their family to pursue higher education, the assurance that they can hold their own in a college classroom.
This year, after an absence of three decades, college debate is returning to Suffolk. With support from Kelly, Frank Irizarry—a longtime debate coach as well as a professor of advertising, public relations & social media—has re-established a competitive college policy debate team at the University. Though related activities such as speech, Model UN, mock trial, and moot court teams thrive on campus, Suffolk hadn’t fielded its own debate team since 1991—the same year that Irizarry, then a sophomore at Marist College, won his first top speaker award in a tournament held at Suffolk.
Irizarry, who co-teaches the dual enrollment course with the BDL’s Marisa Suescun, is relishing the challenge of building a college team from scratch, often working late into the evenings to help his novice debaters build their cases.
Students from any major, he says, can benefit from debate. “I tell students all the time that debate is not a public speaking activity. Debate is a research, advocacy, persuasion, critical thinking, and listening activity,” says Irizarry.
David Rivera, now a first-year marketing major at Suffolk, agrees. As De Souza’s former BDL debate partner, he learned how to support both sides of a case during the course of a tournament, and to prepare for cross-examinations by anticipating as many potential perspectives as possible. In the process, he gained valuable listening skills and the ability to respect other points of view.
“The best skill that you can have as a debater,” he says, “is not being able to speak but being able to listen to others.”
When it came time to apply to college, Suffolk was a natural choice for Boston native Xyra Mercer. She had been on campus for debates since middle school and grew more at home as she neared high school graduation. She recalls hectic days during the fall of her senior year, criss-crossing the city from her home in Roxbury to school in Dorchester, then downtown to Suffolk for the dual-enrollment course. Grabbing dinner on the way, she’d trek home just in time to log into Zoom and step into her role as the Boston School Committee’s student representative.
Mercer, now a Suffolk Class of 2026 History, Language & Global Culture major, says debate helped her channel her self-described “love of arguing” as a child into a way to back up her opinions and use her voice to help make change. Her experience as the nonvoting advocate for students citywide on the school committee—digging into tough issues such as systemic racism, test scores, facilities, and the long-lasting impact of selecting a new superintendent—made her appreciate the skills she learned in BDL.
“Everything’s very fast moving, very in the moment,” says Mercer of politics in Boston. “You have to really make sure you're clear to get your point across.”
Suffolk junior Will Woodring, says his debut college debate tournament in Los Angeles last November felt like “being thrown into the World Series.”
Close friends and roommates, he and his debate partner, Stephen Merrick, Class of 2024, joined the team to hone their research and communication skills—Woodring to prepare for a career in political communication, Merrick in anticipation of future study in law school. They practiced late into the night before their first competition, timing and critiquing every argument. They half-joked about losing every round, knowing that Irizarry would be supportive, but dreading the possibility of letting him down after he’d worked so hard to bring them up to scratch, says Merrick.
And then it happened. In their first round, they bombed.
But the pair stayed calm, regrouping and bracing for round two. Quickly adapting to the dynamics of a live tournament, they went 4-2 over the weekend, placing second overall in the novice division. Merrick also took home an individual speaker award, one of three earned by the rookie Suffolk debaters.
“I’m more confident now in talking to other people, in presentations, and just raising my hand in class,” says Woodring. “Looking toward the future, these skills are really relevant. How do you make your point? How do you advocate for something?”
As students move through the levels of debate, from middle school and high school and now through Suffolk’s college team, many are compelled to give back.
Rivera came to the US four years ago from El Salvador. He credits debate with helping him represent his language and culture with pride. Now he is working to establish a college-level Spanish-language league at the University, and works as a debate coach for students at Brighton High School.
“I tell them, this is not about winning or losing,” says Rivera. “You’re representing the community, to show that we can take things seriously, that we can be as smart as other people, no matter the language or any cultural difference.”
Xyra Mercer is also looking to the future. She is part of the Boston Public Schools’ Teacher Cadet program, which focuses on developing the next generation of BIPOC educators to serve the city’s students. Through her work on the Boston School Committee, Mercer has seen the daunting challenges educators face. But her experience in debate makes her believe that progress is possible.
“If adults could consider issues and listen to other people the way students do in the debate setting, so many unjust laws would not exist. So many other beneficial laws would be passed. One of the best things about debate for me is that we learn to ask questions, and we actually care about the answers.”
From ‘the World Series’ to the real world
This year, after an absence of three decades, Suffolk relaunched a competitive college debate team, whose members include (from left) Cara Wong, Will Woodring, Bradley Burns, Debate Coach Frank Irizarry, Stephen Merrick, David Rivera.