Sonoma Academy policy debaters had the incredible opportunity to debate in the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C. last week.  The four SA debaters, Audrey von Raesfeld ‘17, Connor Duncan ‘17, Aris Saxena ‘17, and Caleb Kornfein ‘17 were among 30 debaters from across the nation who participated in three public debates on Capitol Hill.  Sonoma Academy was one of only two schools in California to participate in these debates and is currently the #1 Ranked Policy Debate team in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the Golden Gate Speech Association.  The SA debaters were addressing a subset of the yearlong policy debate topic about domestic surveillance.  The topic of the debate was: Domestic mass surveillance will significantly reduce the threat of terrorism in the United States.  

The opportunity to debate in Congress came about after an article in The Intercept  about how the high school policy debate community was having more nuanced debates on domestic surveillance than some members of Congress. Access Now, an online advocacy group about digital rights, worked with the House Judiciary to create this event. 

Policy Debate is a unique subset of the Speech and Debate competition arena. Teams of two focus on one topic for the entire year and compete at the local and national levels. There are nearly 20,000 American students who participate in policy debate every year. Delegates from various state associations and debate organizations choose the upcoming topics for the school year each summer.

Saxena and Kornfein were members of the Affirmative team, arguing that mass surveillance is a necessary tool for the United States to combat terrorism while von Raesfeld and Duncan argued for the Negative team that targeted surveillance was more effective than mass data collection.

While in Washington, the Sonoma Academy debate team was able to meet both Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, as well as to talk politics with Washington insider, Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report.  The team also toured National Public Radio and met with NPR White House Correspondent, Tamara Keith, to talk about the upcoming presidential election and the role of journalists in the political process.

The Intercept also wrote a follow up article on the debates.