This summer, the Charlotte Latin School Speech & Debate Team made an extremely strong showing at the National Speech & Debate Tournament, the premier forensics competition in the United States. Latin brought seven debaters to the tournament, which attracted more than 6,700 students from 1,500 schools; over five days of competition in June in Des Moines, IA, six of the Latin competitors earned laurels. 

As a result of their powerful performances, Charlotte Latin earned the NSDA Debate Schools of Excellence Award, making Latin one of the top 20 programs for debate in the country (placing it in the top .013% of schools nationwide). 

Megan Butt, Speech & Debate Coach, observed, “What makes the national tournament really special is that our students get to see the best of the best that this activity offers, and to imagine themselves standing on the big stage with the lights in their face and the roar of thousands of people. This year, not only did our students imagine it, they achieved it!”

The team of Anisha Chandra ’26 and Divija Rao ’26 ranked in fifth place in the category of Public Forum Debate, while Natalie Berman ’26 and Nicholas Willett ’26 achieved 25th place in the same category. They all debated the resolution “Resolved: On balance, in the United States, the benefits of presidential executive orders outweigh the harms.” The format required them to prepare for both sides of the issue: in half of their rounds, they argued the Pro position, and in the other half, they advocated for Con.

Angelina Yang ’26 was a quarterfinalist in the Congressional Debate (House) category, where students role-play as legislators. That required her to debate a wide range of real-world issues, including whether Puerto Rico should be granted statehood, whether there should be limits on withdrawals from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, whether plea bargaining should be abolished, and whether hospitals should be required to disclose procedure prices publicly.

Similarly, Isabel Yang ’26, who ranked 33rd in the category of World Schools Debate, was required to tackle a new topic every round, ranging from “This House regrets the commercialization of single-family homes” to “This House, as a social movement, would heavily prioritize boycotts as a preferred tool of dissent.”

Butt added that one of the Latin debaters was astonished by her own success. “I told her that I wasn’t surprised at all, that she had worked so hard and had earned it,” she said. “In that moment I think she saw herself for the first time the way that we all see her — as the bright, talented, driven person that she is. It was nice to see her step fully into her confidence and power.”

Bilal Butt, the Director of Speech & Debate, was honored at the tournament with his second Diamond award, recognizing longevity and success as a forensics coach: over the past ten years of coaching, his teams have accrued over 30,000 NSDA points. “All of this was a result of our students’ incredible hard work over the year with the help of some amazing people,” he said after the team returned triumphantly to North Carolina. “I am so very proud of our team and looking forward to next year!"