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In com­pet­i­tive debate future pres­i­dents, supreme court jus­tices, and titans of indus­try pum­mel each oth­er with log­ic and rhetoric.

Unclasp your brief­case. It’s time for a show­down. Look­ing back on an episode orig­i­nal­ly aired in 2016, we take a good long look at the world of com­pet­i­tive col­lege debate.

This is Ryan Wash’s sto­ry. He’s a queer, Black, first-gen­er­a­tion col­lege stu­dent from Kansas City, Mis­souri who joined the debate team at Empo­ria State Uni­ver­si­ty on a whim. When he start­ed going up against fast-talk­ing, well-fund­ed, name-brand” teams, from places like North­west­ern and Har­vard, it was clear he wasn’t in Kansas any­more. So Ryan became the van­guard of a move­ment that made every­thing about debate debat­able. In the end, he made him­self a home in a strange and hos­tile land. Whether he was able to change what counts as rig­or­ous aca­d­e­m­ic argu­ment … well, that’s still up for debate.