Greenhill Debate Coaches Lead Team USA in Championships

The USA Debate team — the national high school team representing the United States of America — recently traveled to Hanoi, Vietnam, to compete against 64 countries from across the globe in the largest World Schools Debating Championships in history. After 12 grueling rounds of competition, the team was crowned World Champions.

The team, led by Co-Head Coaches Aaron and Cindi Timmons, competed against the national teams of Slovenia, Croatia, Qatar, India, Bangladesh, Ireland, Canada, and Sri Lanka where they compiled a 7-1 preliminary round record. As a testament to the strength of their opponents, seven of the eight preliminary-round competitors advanced to the elimination rounds.

In the elimination/knockout rounds, the team first defeated New Zealand in the octo-finals, Hong Kong — the defending World Champions — in the quarterfinals, Malaysia in the semifinals, and, Canada — the pre-tournament number-one seed — in the final round.

The grand final motion was, "This House prefers a world ruled by a benevolent AI programmed to maximize utility by calculating the actions most guaranteed to reduce the greatest global suffering." Following a 7-4 split decision, Team USA won against Team Canada. This was the first time since 1994 that Team USA competed in the grand final of World Schools Debate Championship tournament.

The USA Debate Team is sponsored by the National Speech and Debate Association.