Spotlight Series: Beyond Resolved
Written by: Pari Vardhineedi
Edited by: Deepti Kumaran
In the 21st century, the importance of advocacy arose amongst many civilians to protect rights, enact social change, and influence social justice. Amongst these civilians, numerous students advocate for social change through social media platforms, through peaceful protests, or through creating organizations. Today, we want to spotlight one student-led organization that advocates for social change within the High School Speech and Debate community: Beyond Resolved. Beyond Resolved strives to illuminate the overlooked disparities and focus on improving upon issues that affect various, dissimilar student populations. This information is provided courtesy of Katherine Dweyer, the Treasurer of Beyond Resolved.
Beyond Resolved was founded by Sara Catherine Cook and Anna Kate Lembke in June of 2018. The initiative for starting Beyond Resolved arose when Public Forum (a type of debate including two students advocating for and two students rejecting the position placed by their monthly resolution, which is generally about a current event) experienced its first public instances of sexism, racism, and other overlooked disparities. From these instances, Cook and Lembke founded this organization, and from then, Beyond Resolved gained numerous supporters and members, and various BR chapters sprung up in 27 states around the United States.
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As a student-led organization, high school students constitute numerous leadership roles since the founders created this organization in their high school years. Many of the Cabinet members and individual Chapter leaders are in high school. However many college students, debate coaches, and professors aid in accomplishing this organization’s mission. In addition, sponsors, volunteers, and donors support and fund this organization’s initiatives, helping Beyond Resolved help others.
Beyond Resolved strives to focus upon the distinct issues created by the lack of awareness on overlooked inequalities within the speech and debate community. Their current initiatives include race and ethnicity, wealth and class, mental health and disability, and LGBTQIA+ issues. Each initiative holds individual goals, initiative leaders, and members, who all aim to focus on how to help the various demographics of students who are affected. In striving to aid these affected students, Beyond Resolved provides resources such as scholarships, college resources, educational resources, an online debate program, etc., in order to create a more inclusive and caring speech and debate environment.
Furthermore, to raise awareness and allow individuals to express themselves, Beyond Resolved created two supportive platforms: their blog as well as their “Hall of Shame.” The blog serves as a platform for any individual affiliated with speech and debate to spread awareness through creative mediums, express their concerns, or share their voice on issues of equity and equality in speech and debate. Alongside their blog, their organization’s “Hall of Shame” provides a safe haven for individuals to share their negative experiences or instances with inequity within speech and debate. Stories published on this platform discussed negative experiences concerning racism, elitism, homophobia, and various disparities. Naming this platform “Hall of Shame” derived from the “shame” that comes from sharing negative experiences; a majority of the time, when individuals share their stories, they are minimized, ignored, or dismissed. Thus, Beyond Resolved created “The Hall of Shame” for these individuals to not feel any retaliation, only peace with expressing and sharing their stories.
Beyond Resolved began a supportive, inclusive community where all students feel safe, welcome, and heard. They have opened eyes to the disparities and injustices within the speech and debate community, and they have created programs, provided resources, and gave assistance to those affected by these disparities. Beyond Resolved truly advocates for aiding the marginalized populations within speech and debate, and they sincerely abide by their message to “Connect. Debate. Empower”.
Visit Beyond Resolved’s website to learn further about their organization’s mission, initiatives, resources, and volunteer opportunities. Their website is https://www.beyond-resolved.org/.
