Dear Mem­bers of the PFD Community:

For the past cou­ple of months, as ques­tions have grown over the nature of Pub­lic Forum top­ics and the use of topic areas to attract sup­port for the mis­sion of the NFL, I have asked my staff to remain rel­a­tively silent to allow the com­mu­nity open dis­course with­out the fog of the NFL National Office’s com­men­tary. View­ing the online dis­cus­sions has been both enlight­en­ing and disconcerting.

On the one hand, the dis­cus­sion of PFD topic selec­tion has shown that Pub­lic Forum Debate and the top­ics and res­o­lu­tions that are debated are of great con­cern to our stu­dent and coach mem­bers. This undoubt­edly means that the event is of great impor­tance to our com­mu­nity and the future of foren­sics. I could not agree more. Dur­ing my entire tenure as the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the NFL, I have watched Pub­lic Forum Debate blos­som into the most pop­u­lar high school debate event in the coun­try. The pri­mary rea­son for this explo­sion of par­tic­i­pa­tion is access. Pub­lic Forum Debate has pro­vided access to debate for thou­sands of teach­ers and stu­dents around the nation. Pub­lic Forum Debate is afford­able, class­room friendly, and fun.

The NFL’s mis­sion is to “pro­mote high school and mid­dle school speech and debate activ­i­ties as a means to develop a student’s essen­tial life skills and val­ues. “ Among sev­eral other ser­vices, a pri­mary vehi­cle for accom­plish­ing our mis­sion is to pro­vide the com­pet­i­tive frame­work for the activ­ity through topic selec­tion, rules estab­lish­ment, regional and national level com­pe­ti­tion, and edu­ca­tional resourc­ing. Another key ser­vice is to con­nect those will­ing to sup­port the activ­ity with the activ­ity itself. Pub­lic Forum Debate, by design, cre­ates this link. It lends itself to com­mu­nity vol­un­teer judg­ing, is eas­ily teach­able in work­shops and coach clin­ics, and is attrac­tive to sup­port­ers who see PFD as a way for youth to dis­cuss key issues of our time in very cre­ative ways.

Over the past few years, the NFL has embraced this ground swell of sup­port and has tried to use it to the advan­tage of the activ­ity. We have worked directly with sev­eral orga­ni­za­tions whose mis­sions are com­pli­men­tary to ours in the area of youth edu­ca­tion. We have tried to be metic­u­lous in our vet­ting of pro­gram part­ners and spon­sors to make sure that the event and the NFL mis­sion are never com­pro­mised in the desire to gain more pub­lic sup­port. Over the past six years, two national PFD review and rec­om­men­da­tion com­mit­tees have met, a PFD word­ing rec­om­men­da­tion com­mit­tee has been estab­lished, and two national lead­er­ship con­fer­ences have been held. The result of this effort has been sus­tained growth of the NFL mem­ber­ship, growth of PFD par­tic­i­pa­tion, and growth of orga­ni­za­tional and finan­cial support.

With this growth in par­tic­i­pa­tion has also come height­ened scrutiny over the res­o­lu­tions being debated each month in Pub­lic Forum Debate. I believe that it is a fun­da­men­tal respon­si­bil­ity of the League to accu­rately inform its mem­bers of the process being used. Although this infor­ma­tion is avail­able through pub­li­ca­tions and var­i­ous League com­mu­ni­ca­tions, I do not feel that the PFD com­mu­nity has been ade­quately informed of the real­ity of topic selec­tion and topic spon­sor­ship. I am con­cerned that the PFD com­mu­nity has been mis­led, mis­in­formed, and mis­guided on this issue through a vari­ety of sources. There­fore, I would like to clar­ify the processes being used.

To date, PFD topic selec­tion and topic area spon­sor­ship remains a respon­si­bil­ity of the Office of the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor per order of the NFL Board of Direc­tors. In 2006, the Board estab­lished the use of a word­ing advi­sory com­mit­tee to assist the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor and his staff in deter­min­ing the monthly top­ics. In 2008, the NFL Board estab­lished a set of gift giv­ing poli­cies and spon­sor­ship and part­ner guide­lines as fur­ther guid­ance for the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor. It has been this reg­u­la­tory frame­work by the Board that has guided the actions of this office. This frame­work cov­ers all gift giv­ing and spon­sor­ship activ­i­ties. This past sum­mer, the Board estab­lished another com­mit­tee to review PFD rules and guide­lines (includ­ing the process of topic selec­tion). That com­mit­tee did not rec­om­mend a change from the sta­tus quo, but in all fair­ness to dis­clo­sure, did not spend sub­stan­tial time on the par­tic­u­lar issue of topic selection.

Cur­rently, two pri­mary sce­nar­ios exist for the devel­op­ment of a PFD topic under the cur­rent pro­ce­dures. First, there are months in which the topic area is con­sid­ered “open.” In these months, the PFD advi­sory com­mit­tee vets sev­eral options for topic areas and comes to con­sen­sus on a sin­gle topic area for rec­om­men­da­tion. At this time, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor points out any poten­tial con­cerns for the com­mit­tee to con­sider. Then, assum­ing the topic area has mutual agree­ment, the com­mit­tee cre­ates a rec­om­men­da­tion for the word­ing of the topic area in the form of a res­o­lu­tion. This rec­om­men­da­tion is sent to the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor seven days in advance of the topic release date to allow for word­ing adjust­ments if there are con­cerns on the part of the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor. After con­sent from the Office of the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, the topic is released per the estab­lished schedule.

Sec­ond, there are months in which the NFL has secured a project part­ner or spon­sor. In these cases, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor has deter­mined that a par­tic­u­lar topic area (not the spe­cific res­o­lu­tion) should be debated in a par­tic­u­lar month. There are times that this results in finan­cial and resource sup­port from the part­ner­ing entity. How­ever, it is extremely impor­tant for the debate com­mu­nity to under­stand that part­ners and spon­sors DO NOT deter­mine the word­ing of the res­o­lu­tion. A spon­sor or a part­ner is never allowed to dic­tate the word­ing of a res­o­lu­tion or allowed to micro­man­age the Exec­u­tive Director’s final word­ing deci­sions. In fact, the word­ing advi­sory com­mit­tee (as with “open” months) is given the oppor­tu­nity to word the res­o­lu­tion within the pro­vided topic area frame­work to cre­ate a rec­om­men­da­tion to the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor. For exam­ple, in Feb­ru­ary, March, and April of this year, the word­ing com­mit­tee was given the gen­eral topic areas of lob­by­ing, racial pref­er­ence, and labor unions based on a grant pro­posal gen­er­ated by my office. These topic areas are timely and edu­ca­tional and fit within the para­me­ters estab­lished by the board. The com­mit­tee was given the free­dom to cre­ate the final res­o­lu­tion word­ing in all three topic areas.

In the case of a part­ner­ship or spon­sor­ship arrange­ment, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor has deter­mined, in his opin­ion, that the topic area being used fits the para­me­ters of the Board guide­lines and will ben­e­fit the NFL mis­sion and the event. In no cases has the integrity of the event or the NFL been com­pro­mised by these rela­tion­ships. I can assure the PFD com­mu­nity, that the NFL does not “sell” res­o­lu­tions. It makes spon­sor­ship agree­ments and part­ner­ships (within Board para­me­ters) in which topic areas often play a role in a much larger pic­ture. For exam­ple, a set of spon­sored topic areas may result in the nation’s largest free online video por­tal of edu­ca­tional mate­ri­als in foren­sics. A part­ner­ship on a topic area may result in sev­eral thou­sands of dol­lars in schol­ar­ships or extended ser­vice learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in New York, DC, or abroad. A part­ner­ship grant may allow for stu­dents from sev­eral for­eign nations to engage our mem­bers in life chang­ing debate expe­ri­ences. A spon­sor­ship or part­ner­ship may result in cov­er­age of our activ­ity in major media out­lets. In the past decade, spon­sored events, top­ics, and part­ner­ship pro­grams have involved all forms of debate and speech and have gen­er­ated count­less resources, over 1.5 mil­lion dol­lars in schol­ar­ships, and over 3 mil­lion dol­lars in addi­tional finan­cial resources that have been used to ben­e­fit sec­ondary speech and debate.

The debate on whether or not topic areas should be used as an asset in the acqui­si­tion of resources for the NFL and the activ­ity is a good and healthy debate. Peo­ple have argued that topic areas should be cho­sen first then used as poten­tial assets in sup­port acqui­si­tion to allow for a more demo­c­ra­tic process. In the past, this idea has been dis­missed because it would require knowl­edge of topic areas sev­eral months in advance and would dras­ti­cally limit the sup­port pool at times. Some have argued that top­ics should never be repeated. This is a rea­son­able argu­ment, but the under­ly­ing ques­tions of when a topic is cur­rent again and when res­o­lu­tions over­lap in topic areas will always be dis­putable. It is a dis­cus­sion that should hap­pen and, if deemed appro­pri­ate, should elicit pos­i­tive pol­icy change by the NFL board.

How­ever, I ask the com­mu­nity not to con­fuse the use of topic areas in part­ner­ships with dis­sat­is­fac­tion over the word­ing of res­o­lu­tions. I feel strongly that all topic areas pre­sented this year have cer­tainly met the cur­rent topic para­me­ters for PFD that were designed and approved by a national com­mit­tee of PFD coaches. They have been timely and all are debat­able issues. If the word­ing of res­o­lu­tions has cre­ated prob­lems, then that is a sub­ject unre­lated to part­ners and spon­sors, unless one feels that there is no fea­si­ble way to write a res­o­lu­tion on a par­tic­u­lar topic area. I do not believe this to be the case. The issue of proper res­o­lu­tion word­ing is com­mon in all forms of debate and extremely chal­leng­ing for any team of writ­ers. For this rea­son, the NFL is com­mit­ted to con­tin­u­ally revis­it­ing the word­ing process to ensure the most debat­able and edu­ca­tional resolutions.

Thank you for read­ing. I hope this post can help fur­ther the intel­lec­tual dis­course on the issue and answer some lin­ger­ing ques­tions. Although it will not be fea­si­ble for me to par­tic­i­pate in on going “blog dia­logue”, the opin­ions of the PFD com­mu­nity do mat­ter, and I and my staff will con­tinue to review posts, emails, and shared con­cerns and will con­vey your thoughts with the NFL Board of Direc­tors as they estab­lish poli­cies mov­ing forward.

Sin­cerely,
J. Scott Wunn
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor
National Foren­sic League

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