The 2025-2026 debate topics: what students argued all year — and what they learned doing it

By Honor Academy · Serving Orange County and Los Angeles · Speech & Debate Coaches

Every debate season, the National Speech and Debate Association releases a new set of resolutions for Lincoln-Douglas and Public Forum debate — topics drawn from the most pressing questions in law, policy, philosophy, economics, and international relations. For the 2025-2026 school year, those topics spanned artificial intelligence in the justice system, nuclear weapons, military intervention, housing policy, global development, civil liberties, and the use of American force abroad.

What most parents and students do not fully appreciate is what happens when a student actually prepares to debate these topics. They do not skim a Wikipedia article and walk into a round. They read academic journals, policy papers, court decisions, and expert analysis. They build original arguments. They learn what economists, philosophers, ethicists, and policymakers actually say — and then they argue about it in front of a judge. By the end of a two-month topic cycle, a dedicated competitive debater knows more about that subject than most adults. That depth of knowledge is one of the most powerful and underappreciated benefits of competitive speech and debate.

Here is a complete breakdown of every LD and PF topic debated during the 2025-2026 school year — and what students genuinely learned by preparing for each one.

Lincoln-Douglas debate — 2025-2026 topics

Lincoln-Douglas debate focuses on philosophical and ethical questions. Topics change every two months and are debated by a single student on each side. LD pushes students to engage with value frameworks — the deep moral and philosophical foundations that underlie their positions — rather than arguing purely from evidence and statistics.

September/October 2025 — Resolved: In the United States criminal justice system, plea bargaining is just.

This topic asked students to engage with one of the most consequential and least-understood mechanisms of the American criminal justice system. Plea bargaining — the process by which prosecutors offer reduced charges or sentences in exchange for guilty pleas — resolves the vast majority of criminal cases in the United States. Students preparing for this topic researched the philosophy of justice, constitutional due process rights, the practical realities of public defender caseloads, racial disparities in plea outcomes, and competing theories of punishment. By the time they competed, they had developed a nuanced understanding of how criminal justice actually works — far beyond what is taught in any high school class.

November/December 2025 — Resolved: The United States ought to prioritize green growth over degrowth.

This topic introduced students to one of the most important policy debates in contemporary economics and environmental policy. Green growth argues that economic expansion and environmental sustainability can coexist through technology, innovation, and clean energy investment. Degrowth argues that sustainable environmental futures require reducing overall economic output. Students explored GDP measurement, climate science, environmental economics, ecological limits, and the political philosophy of progress and sustainability. This is exactly the kind of rigorous, forward-looking policy analysis that universities and employers value.

January/February 2026 — Resolved: The possession of nuclear weapons is immoral.

Few topics demand the level of philosophical depth this one required. Students built arguments engaging with deterrence theory, just war philosophy, international humanitarian law, the concept of collective security, and the ethics of risk and responsibility. On one side — the moral argument that weapons designed for mass civilian casualties can never be justified. On the other — the pragmatic moral case that nuclear deterrence has prevented large-scale conventional war for eight decades. Preparing for this topic gave students a genuine education in international security, political philosophy, and the ethics of military force.

March/April 2026 — Resolved: The United States military ought to abide by the principle of non-intervention.

This topic asked students to grapple with one of the oldest and most contested questions in American foreign policy — when, if ever, is it justified for the United States to intervene militarily in the affairs of other nations? Students explored international law, the United Nations Charter, the history of American interventionism, humanitarian intervention doctrine, and competing theories of state sovereignty and human rights. The preparation for this topic overlapped with real-world events unfolding across the globe, making the research feel immediate and relevant in a way classroom lessons rarely achieve.

2026 NSDA Nationals — Resolved: Democracies ought to prioritize the protection of civil liberties over national security.

The LD topic for the 2026 NSDA National Championship — the largest academic competition in the world — asked students to take a position on one of the most enduring tensions in democratic governance. Civil liberties versus national security has defined constitutional debates since the founding of the United States and intensified dramatically in the post-September 11 era. Students who competed at NSDA Nationals on this topic had read landmark Supreme Court decisions, studied the history of emergency powers, engaged with political philosophers from John Locke to contemporary legal scholars, and developed sophisticated original arguments about what democracies owe their citizens. A total of 776 coaches and 2,683 students voted for this resolution — it received 59 percent of the coach vote and 55 percent of the student vote.

Public Forum debate — 2025-2026 topics

Public Forum debate focuses on current events and policy questions, argued by two-person teams. Topics change monthly — which means PF debaters cover more ground in a single school year than most adults engage with in several years of reading the news. The pace is demanding. The intellectual breadth it produces is exceptional.

September/October 2025 — Resolved: The European Union should establish a nuclear sharing agreement with France to create an independent deterrent capability.

This topic launched the season with a deep dive into European security architecture, NATO’s future, France’s independent nuclear deterrent, and the geopolitical implications of a post-American Europe. Students researched the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, European Union defense policy, the history of French strategic autonomy, and Russian nuclear doctrine. Parents watching their children debate this topic at local tournaments across Orange County were often struck by the sophistication of the arguments their middle and high school students were making about issues that dominate conversations in Brussels, Paris, and Washington.

November/December 2025 — Resolved: State governments in the United States should end all judicial elections.

A domestic policy topic with direct relevance to how American democracy functions. Students explored the constitutional basis for judicial selection, the influence of campaign financing on elected judges, comparative analysis of appointed versus elected courts, and the tension between judicial independence and democratic accountability. This topic gave students a genuine education in how courts work — and why the method of selecting judges matters enormously for the outcomes of ordinary Americans’ lives.

January 2026 — Resolved: The People’s Republic of China should substantially reduce its international extraction of natural resources.

One of the most globally consequential topics of the season. China’s extraction of natural resources — rare earth minerals, timber, fisheries, and more — across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America is one of the defining geopolitical stories of the 21st century. Students researched supply chains, environmental law, sovereign wealth, international trade agreements, and the political economy of development. The knowledge built on this topic is directly relevant to careers in international business, environmental policy, and global affairs.

February 2026 — Resolved: The Supreme Court should overturn District of Columbia v. Heller.

District of Columbia v. Heller is the 2008 Supreme Court decision that established the individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment. Debating whether it should be overturned required students to read the actual Supreme Court opinions, engage with constitutional originalism and living constitutionalism as interpretive philosophies, research gun violence data, and understand the legal doctrine of stare decisis. This is exactly the kind of rigorous legal reasoning that law schools spend their first year teaching — and Honor Academy’s PF students were doing it in middle school and high school.

March 2026 — Resolved: The United States federal government should ban corporate acquisition of single-family residences.

Housing affordability is one of the most urgent economic and social issues across California and the entire country. This topic was directly relevant to the lived experience of families across Orange County — where housing costs have made homeownership increasingly out of reach for working and middle-class families. Students researched institutional investors in residential real estate, housing supply economics, zoning policy, and the political debate around housing affordability. The depth of knowledge students built on this topic gave them genuine fluency in one of the most important domestic policy debates of our time.

April 2026 — Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its investment in Low Earth Orbit satellite networks.

Space policy, telecommunications infrastructure, national security applications of satellite technology, and the commercial space industry — this topic bridged cutting-edge technology and geopolitical strategy. Students researched SpaceX’s Starlink program, military applications of satellite networks, spectrum allocation, and the international governance of outer space. The technical and policy depth required to debate this topic at a high level is genuinely impressive.

2026 NSDA Nationals — Resolved: The United States is justified in using force to remove authoritarian leaders from power.

The Public Forum topic for the 2026 NSDA National Championship is perhaps the most consequential and timely topic of the entire season. Whether democracies have the right — or the obligation — to use military force to depose authoritarian governments touches on international law, the United Nations Charter, the history of American military interventionism, human rights doctrine, and the realpolitik of great power competition. A total of 778 coaches and 2,791 students voted for this resolution — it received 53 percent of the coach vote and 57 percent of the student vote. Honor Academy students who qualified for and competed at NSDA Nationals prepared extensively for this topic, engaging with arguments at a level of sophistication that reflects years of competitive debate training.

What debate actually teaches — beyond the topics

Reading through the 2025-2026 topic list, something becomes clear. These are not abstract academic exercises. Plea bargaining. Nuclear deterrence. European security. Housing affordability. Corporate power. Civil liberties versus national security. These are the issues that define the world students are entering — the subjects that will shape their careers, their civic lives, and their understanding of the society they live in.

Competitive debate forces students to engage with these issues at a level of depth that no classroom curriculum can match — because they are not just reading about them. They are arguing about them, building original cases, responding to counterarguments in real time, and doing it all in front of judges who evaluate the quality of their reasoning. The result is students who do not just know facts about these issues. They understand them. They can think about them from multiple perspectives. They can argue for positions they personally disagree with — and do it well. That intellectual flexibility is one of the rarest and most valuable skills a young person can develop.

Honor Academy students across Orange County — from Fullerton, Cerritos, Cypress, Los Alamitos, Anaheim, Irvine, Brea, Los Angeles, Yorba Linda, Placentia, Buena Park, La Palma, Artesia, and Garden Grove — have spent the 2025-2026 school year building exactly this kind of knowledge and intellectual capability. Many of them have gone on to compete at OCSL tournaments, CHSSA State qualifiers, and NSDA Nationals — and many of our alumni have been accepted to Harvard, Cornell, Brown, Princeton, Yale, Rice, USC, UCLA, Williams College, Claremont McKenna, Emory, West Point, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and NYU, in part because competitive debate gave them something most applicants cannot offer: a demonstrated, verifiable record of serious intellectual engagement with the most important issues of our time.

Frequently asked questions

What were the LD debate topics for the 2025-2026 school year? – The Lincoln-Douglas debate topics for 2025-2026 were: September/October — plea bargaining in the criminal justice system; November/December — green growth versus degrowth; January/February — the morality of nuclear weapons possession; March/April — the United States military and the principle of non-intervention; and the 2026 NSDA Nationals topic — democracies ought to prioritize civil liberties over national security.

What were the PF debate topics for the 2025-2026 school year? – The Public Forum debate topics for 2025-2026 were: September/October — EU nuclear sharing with France; November/December — ending judicial elections; January — China’s international resource extraction; February — overturning DC v. Heller; March — banning corporate acquisition of single-family homes; April — Low Earth Orbit satellite investment; and the 2026 NSDA Nationals topic — the United States is justified in using force to remove authoritarian leaders from power.

What was the NSDA Nationals PF topic for 2026? – The 2026 NSDA National Tournament Public Forum topic was: Resolved: The United States is justified in using force to remove authoritarian leaders from power. It received 53 percent of the coach vote and 57 percent of the student vote from among 778 coaches and 2,791 students.

What was the NSDA Nationals LD topic for 2026? – The 2026 NSDA National Tournament Lincoln-Douglas topic was: Resolved: Democracies ought to prioritize the protection of civil liberties over national security. It received 59 percent of the coach vote and 55 percent of the student vote from among 776 coaches and 2,683 students.

How does competitive debate help students learn real-world knowledge? – Debate requires students to research topics deeply — reading academic journals, policy papers, court decisions, and expert analysis — and build original arguments they can defend under pressure. Over the course of a school year, competitive debaters develop genuine expertise in a wide range of subjects including law, economics, international relations, philosophy, and science. This depth of knowledge is one of the most powerful and under-appreciated educational benefits of competitive speech and debate.

Does Honor Academy offer debate coaching in Orange County? – Yes. Honor Academy offers competitive Lincoln-Douglas and Public Forum debate coaching for middle and high school students across Orange County and Los Angeles — including Fullerton, Cerritos, Cypress, Los Alamitos, Anaheim, Irvine, Brea, Los Angeles, Yorba Linda, Placentia, Buena Park, La Palma, Artesia, and Garden Grove. Online and in-person coaching available.