Dear Colleagues,

The Silicon Valley Urban Debate League (SVUDL) presents:

The John Lewis SVUDL Invitational, formerly known as the SCU Dempsey-Cronin (aka SCU 1).

The Silicon Valley Urban Debate League has taken ownership of the SCU Dempsey Cronin, and will be running a hybrid Speech and Debate invitational to be held the weekend before Thanksgiving, from Nov 21-23.

All proceeds from this tournament will go to the Silicon Valley Urban Debate League, a local nonprofit organization that helps students uncover and hone the power of their voices, so they can confidently step into their full potential as professional and community leaders.

SVUDL is pleased to continue to honor the legacy of the late Congressman John Lewis by naming this Speech and Debate tournament after him. Born near Troy, Alabama in 1940, Congressman Lewis devoted his life to securing civil rights, fair and equal access to voting rights, and was a tireless soldier who literally and repeatedly risked his life in the movement against racial segregation and injustice.

We are also pleased to announce that we are again a NIETOC designated bid tournament for those interested in the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions. We are also designated as a bid tournament for Speech, Public Forum and World Schools for the Tournament of Champions, held by the University of Kentucky. We are happy to announce that for this year, the TOC has designated us as a quarterfinals gold and octo finals silver bid for Public Forum. The TOC has also designated us as a finals bid for World Schools Debate.

This will be a hybrid tournament, with all Speech events and Congress held in person at Notre Dame San Jose, located in downtown San Jose, CA.

All other Debate events (LD, PF, Parli, Policy, World Schools) will be held online using the NSDA Campus platform.

All Debate formats will start Friday, November 21 this year. Speech events and Congress start Saturday, November 22.

Due to the hybrid nature of the tournament, students will not be allowed to double enter across Speech and Debate events.

However, students are welcome to double enter in Speech. Congress students may also double enter in Speech. However, the tournament cannot give students extra time to get to rounds if they double enter.

All tournament registration will be on Tabroom.com. Information regarding online platform use for the tournament will be released in the coming weeks.

Please note that the schedule listed is tentative. Depending on the size of entry, the schedule may be adjusted.

If you have any questions regarding the tournament or registration, please email Tournament Director Mariel Cruz at cruznmariel@gmail.com

Please note, we may make adjustments to our tournament procedures to bring us more in line with other national tournaments. Coaches will be notified of any changes made as soon as they have been finalized. Any updates will also be posted here on Tabroom.

Deadlines

The system will accept new entries until Wednesday, November 19, 2025 at 8:00pm. Make drops and adds through Tabroom after that up until the tournament begins. However, changes or drops made after Thursday, November 20, 2025 at 8pm forfeit their entry fees. All space in Debate and Speech will be allocated on a first come, first served basis; register early!

TBA Entries

All TBA Entries will be waitlisted until names are entered. Any TBA entries without names after the registration deadline will be removed from the tournament.

Divisions

All Speech and Debate events will offer a novice and open division. We reserve the right to collapse divisions if entry size is too small for two separate divisions.

World Schools will be one division.

Novice is defined as a student’s first year of competition, or student in their second year if they have competed in fewer than 5 tournaments, and did not advance to elims in any division, regardless of debate format.

Topics:

Lincoln Douglas Debate Topic: NSDA Nov/Dec topic (Rewilding)

Policy Debate Topic: National topic on the Artic

Public Forum: NSDA November Public Forum Topic (Encrypted Communications)

Parliamentary Debate: one topic will be provided for each prelim; for elim rounds, teams may be given three topics and will do strikes to determine the topic. The tournament reserves the right to not offer topic strikes in all elim rounds.

Patterns

Debate Pattern: Policy, Parliamentary, Public Forum and Lincoln-Douglas Debate - held online

World Schools will follow its own schedule and will also be online

Congress in one pattern - in person at Notre Dame San Jose

All Speech events will be divided into 2 patterns, in person at Notre Dame San Jose

Speech Patterns are as follows:

Pattern A: Dramatic Interp Novice, Dramatic Interp Open, Humorous Interp Novice, Humorous Interp Open, Impromptu Novice, Impromptu Open, Informative Novice, Informative Open, Programmed Oral Interp Open and Novice (Combined division)

Pattern B: Declamation Novice, Declamation Open, Duo Interp Novice, Duo Interp Open, Extemp Novice, Extemp Open, Original Oratory Novice, Original Oratory Open, Original Prose & Poetry Open and Novice (Combined division)

Speech Elims

Breakpoints in Speech events shall depend on the entries in each division, in addition to TOC and NIETOC round requirements. We will aim to break 1/3 of the overall field, with no more than half the field advancing at the discretion of the Tournament Director. The approximate breakpoints shall be as follows:

• Events with 7 or fewer entries shall not have a Final Round, but may have a 5th Preliminary Round.
• Events with 8 - 24 entries shall have a Final Round of at least 6 or 7 speakers. Events with small entry numbers may result in no more than half the field advancing to the Final Round.
• Events with 25 - 49 entries shall advance at least 10 - 14 speakers to a Semifinal Round.
• Events with 50 - 59 entries shall advance at least 18 - 21 speakers to a three section Semifinal Round.
• Events with 60 or more entries shall advance at least 24 - 35 speakers to a Quarterfinal Round.

We will award trophies up to the top 6 in all speech events, and medals to Semifinalists and Quarterfinals. Placement will be determined by cumulative ranking.

General Tournament Procedures

The tournament will consist of six preliminary debate rounds for varsity, five prelims debate rounds for novice, and four preliminary rounds of varsity and novice speech events. We reserve the right to combine divisions if the entry warrants.

Semifinals will be held in individual events with 50 or more entries or the discretion of the tournament director. Undersubscribed events may waive finals.

Tournament Caps and Waitlist

Due to the size of the tournament, we will be placing caps on the debate events. Each school will be allotted 4 entries per division per debate event. All entries over the caps will be waitlisted.

Entries may also be waitlisted if the tournament reaches capacity. Schools will be moved off the waitlist as space opens up. Schools that have not already taken up their allotted slots in each event will be moved first, and schools with completed judge entries will also be given preference. Remaining waitlisted entries will be moved on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Congress

Please designate the PO's with a 'po' for every ten entries via email to cruznmariel@gmail.com. Please note that Congress judges will be listed under IE's. Please enter Congress judges into the IE judge pool. Bills will be included in the official tournament invite, which will be posted on the tournament webpage on Tabroom.com a couple weeks prior to the start of the tournament.

We invite members of the community to submit legislation for the Congress tournament. Please emailcruznmariel@gmail.comwith your legislation. A finalized set of bills will be released in November.

Event Rules

Public Forum, LD, and Policy will be using the following NSDA procedures for round format, but CHSSA procedures regarding evidence.

Generally we use NSDA rules for all speech events but there are exceptions: Extemp is combined national and international. CHSSA rules will be used for Impromptu, OI, and OPP. Overtime rules for ALL events shall follow NSDA Rules.

Parli will also follow CHSSA rules.

Judging Requirements

Schools are not allowed to buy out of more than 50% of your judge commitment. Please see the list of fees for uncovered judge fees. Schools without sufficient judges may be asked to reduce their entry. If your school is not able to provide at least 75% of your judging commitment, please make judge requests early so that we can properly allocate judges for this.

Please note, hired judging is very limited. All hired judge requests must be made by November 18th. Requests will not be accepted after this date, and schools must provide their own judges after this date.

Schools will pay a judging penalty fee per Speech slot, Congress entry, Lincoln Douglas/Duo Interp or Debate team not covered by school judges. Please note, because we were required to hire several judges last year, judge hire fees have been increased this year, and hired judging is limited.

Debate Judges are committed through the elim rounds 1 and 2, and one round past where their school drops from competition. Speech Judges are obligated for all rounds on Saturday and Sunday, regardless if your students advance or not.

Judges are assumed to be experienced and prepared to judge their assigned events or debate formats.Judges must have properly linked Tabroom accounts for online ballot entry. School judges who fail to check in to their rounds when assigned may have their team fined the aforementioned penalties per round. Please contact us if you're unsure of your judging commitment, or have any other questions regarding judging.

Fees

Use this form to compute how much you will owe at registration:

FEES:

__1__ School Fee X $52 = $52

____ number of Event entries/Congress entered X $42= _____

____ number of Parli teams/PF teams X $88 = _____

____ number of LD entries X $62 = _____

____ number of Policy Teams X $88 = _____

Penalties for Not Providing School Judges:

You are obligated to cover 50% of your judging requirement in debate and events with school judges.

____ Speech Event entries/Congress entries uncovered X $75 = _____

____ LD Entries entries uncovered X $115 = _____

_____PF/Policy/Parli entries uncovered X $165 = _____

Total Fees = ____________

Please note, fees have been adjusted this year to include a 3% surcharge for online payments. If your school/program will be paying by check, please email cruznmariel@gmail.com or info@svudl.org to have your invoice adjusted for a 3% discount.

Please make checks payable to “Silicon Valley Urban Debate League” and mail to:

Silicon Valley Urban Debate League

1400 Parkmoor Ave, Ste. 240A

San Jose, CA 95126

Other form of payment:

Zelle - info@svudl.org

Online Payment: https://www.svudl.org/paying-your-tabroom-invoice

This information can also be found at the top of your Tabroom generated invoice