The Great Debater

Abbey Xu ’22 is one of 10 members of the USA Debate Team.

BY KATE DUNLOP

When Abbey Xu ’22 came home one day from her Shanghai middle school and shared that she’d gotten in trouble for talking during class — again — her parents had an idea: If she had so much to say, why not start training in speech and debate?

Now, Xu is one of 10 members of the USA Debate Team for the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) and one of only five students who have been three-year members. With the NSDA, Xu competes in the World Schools (WS) style of debating, in which a three-person team has up to an hour to prepare three eight-minute speeches and a four-minute conclusion. It’s a format, Xu says, that tests the team’s knowledge, strategy, and instinct. As a Third Former, she was a finalist at the 2019 NSDA Nationals in Dallas, debating inmates’ right to vote before an audience of 2,000.

The pandemic moved subsequent debates online, but the shift hasn’t deterred Xu. In 2021, she represented USA Debate at the Macau Online WS Debate Championships, placing 13th overall and third in her division as an individual speaker. She also was a semifinalist at the 2021 NSDA Nationals, the Winter Holiday Open, and the Harvard College WS Invitational and won in the WS division at Harvard-Westlake, the Stanford Invitational, and the Greenhill Fall Classic.

Xu credits debate, its demand for quick thinking and speaking, with improving her writing, boosting her confidence, keeping her informed about current events, and increasing her participation in class discussions. It helps outside the classroom, too.

“I’m involved with the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work at St Paul’s as chair of the Student DEI Council and head of the Justice and Social Equality for Asians Club,” says Xu, who also serves as co-captain of the SPS Parliamentary Debate team. “I have to speak on behalf of our communities and to the School, and debate has given me the confidence to do that.”

The best thing about debate for Xu, though, is the people. She enjoys listening to a wide variety of perspectives from those she meets around the world.

It’s opened me up to so many issues,” she says. “We might debate foreign policy or economics, but often it’s about social issues and niche situations.”

Xu plans to study humanities in college and hopes that her school will have a strong debating society. In the meantime, she’ll keep working to expand access to make debate equitable and inclusive, as she did last summer with the nonprofit Project Dialogue, where she helped to coach students of color.

“Debate can be for anybody,” she says. “Don’t be intimidated. It’s important that we all feel confident in what we’re thinking and saying.”