On Saturday 1 March 2025, Ideas Matter, together with the Bill of Rights Institute, broke new ground. Three teams each from the US and the UK gathered online for the first ever Debating Matters Transatlantic Championship, co-hosted between Debating Matters and the Bill of Rights Institute. It was an intense and thrilling day of debate, across five time zones!
Technology was the topic du jour for the first three rounds of debating, with students contesting the motions ‘Humanity should fear advances in artificial intelligence’, ‘Tech companies should act to stop online misinformation’ and ‘Smartphones should be banned in the classroom‘. US teams The Great Debaters, Yankee Pankey and the Panthers faced off against three UK teams from the Burgate School, Oakwood Park Grammar School (OPGS), and a coalition of schools in Oldham, competing as a team under the banner of ‘Oldham Schools’.
Judges, drawn from a range of sectors – including arts, academia, politics, medicine and economics – on both sides of the pond asked tough questions of debaters, challenging them to find their best arguments and think on their feet throughout three challenging but impressive qualifying rounds.
Free speech was then in the crosshairs for the nail-biting final, as the Panthers battled it out with Oakwood Park Grammar School to debate the motion ‘Cancel Culture is a threat to freedom of speech’. In the face of fierce competition from Oakwood Park Grammar School, the Panthers ultimately prevailed, with team members Rodrigo Deleon Ruiz and Rachel Ball also winning prizes for Best Individual and Commended Individual respectively. Completing the US debaters’ clean sweep of prizes, Gabriella Rothberg from The Great Debaters won Highly Commended Individual. Honourable mentions were awarded to Briana Whatley and Ria Gavvala, respectively of The Great Debaters and Yankee Pankey, alongside UK students Ifan Bambury of OPGS, Izzie Claridge of the Burgate School, and Pashtana Zazai of Oldham Schools. Congratulations to all students who took part, and helped to make this a fantastic first outing for Debating Matters Transatlantic!
I have judged DM from the start. One truly impressive aspect over all the years is the standard of debate. The bar has always been very high and one of the best things is seeing all participants surprise themselves at what they can achieve. DMTA has taken the competition up another notch. I had a genuinely great day; it is up at ‘Number 1’ in a long list of great days judging with DM.
Professor Ellie Lee, judge Debating Matters
A full outline of the championship can be found here. We are grateful to our judges, teachers and students as well as our partners at the Bill of Rights Institute, without whom this competition could not have taken place.