On an otherwise ordinary Monday in October, a small group from Lewis & Clark’s speech and debate team arrived at the Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP), a maximum security prison an hour south of Portland. Joe Gantt, director of forensics and team leader, shepherded the six students through the visiting room, metal detectors, and four sets of checkpoints to arrive at the prison’s activities floor, where they would soon debate a comparable team of incarcerated individuals during the annual college debate tournament.
“It’s quite the process, and it takes almost two months of preparation just to make sure students are cleared to enter,” says Gantt, who has facilitated Lewis & Clark’s involvement with the tournament since 2018. “In almost all cases, it’s students’ first time in a prison.”
In addition to the competition itself, there are opportunities for dialogue among the various team members. For example, prior to competing, most students have a chance to sit down and start a conversation with someone “inside,” settling into the morning over cinnamon rolls and pleasantries. Most of Gantt’s students have called the tournament their most valuable extracurricular experience at Lewis & Clark.
Gantt’s involvement with the tournament goes beyond his role as Lewis & Clark’s team leader. Over eight weeks in the summer, Gantt teaches the skills of rhetoric to incarcerated team members at OSP, helping them construct effective arguments that will translate to the debate stage. Unlike the collegiate teams, the OSP team members have no access to the internet for debate preparation, meaning their tools of argumentation are different. In order to make the competition as fair as possible, topics are prereleased to all teams along with a collection of news articles.
People outside of higher education have started to take note of the tournament. The most recent competition was covered by Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) in a short segment that was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. In the following days, OPB published an extended write-up, emphasizing that the art of debate is still alive and well in this unconventional forum.
Head-to-Head Competition
The tournament began in the early 2010s when OSP formed its own debate club, the Capital Toastmasters, and became an official member of the nonprofit organization Toastmasters International. Debaters from three different schools in the Pacific Northwest––Willamette University, Linfield University, and Lewis & Clark––signed up to take on the Capital Toastmasters, kicking off a competition that has now expanded to teams from across the United States. In 2025, the list included teams from Claremont McKenna College in California, Carroll College in Montana, and Texas Tech University.
“In a traditional format, debating can feel almost like a game,” says Gantt. “Here, you can see how arguments help people transform and change their situations. The folks inside have used the argumentative skills they’ve learned from debate to make arguments about their cases or treatment within the prison.” For the student debaters, it’s a chance to see the real-world implications of civil dialogue in an increasingly uncivil world.
The tournament begins with sixteen teams of two. In the first three rounds, all teams debate one another, part of the “British parliamentary style” format. In this year’s competition, the preselected topics of debate spanned the use of AI in education, the professionalism of college athletes, and the limits of presidential power.
In the championship round, the remaining four teams go head-to-head. This fall, two teams from OSP and two teams from Lewis & Clark battled it out for top honors. Their debate question: whether social media should be eliminated with the press of a button. Gantt recalls looking out at the final four and realizing it was a win-win for him––each person in the championship was someone he had instructed. After an hour of lively, well-matched exchange, the top two prizes went to OSP’s Capital Toastmasters.
Lessons for Life and Debate
While the competition is important, the experience transcends wins and losses. Isabella Moore BA ’27, a political science major and data science minor, has participated in the tournament at OSP for the last two years. Each time, she feels a deeper sense of understanding about incarceration. She also sees herself as a better communicator.
“The collegiate circuit favors a narrow range of arguments––think those most in line with mainstream liberal values––and debaters pull from a narrow range of experiences since most of us have similar ages and backgrounds,” says Moore. “The Capital Toastmasters come from an extremely diverse range of backgrounds, so hearing their perspectives is always valuable, both in and out of competition.”
Traditional debates don’t tend to have large audiences, but at OSP, the tournament draws an enthusiastic crowd of around 150 incarcerated individuals.
“Part of the Capital Toastmasters’ strategy was to lean into audience engagement, which I hadn’t thought of before,” says Julia Low BA ’29, a political science and international affairs double major. “In this particular tournament, it wasn’t just about the judges, but also creating an educational environment to show that speech and debate can be fun.”
Just like in Lewis & Clark’s acclaimed Inside-Out courses, the tournament provides a window for students into a world that is often hidden.
“We debate about the effectiveness of policy all the time, asking ‘What should the government do about this or that issue?’ But it’s theoretical,” says Gantt. “There is less room for theory when you’re debating inside a setting like OSP. This experience enriches students, and it gives them perspective––an extra tool in the toolbox for civil discourse and debate.”
Speech and Debate Community Dialogues
