It's time for the Michelle Tofoya podcast.

The aforementioned James Fishback joins us now.

I'm so grateful, James, that you're joining us.

I'm grateful you wrote this piece for the free press.

I'm grateful for the free press.

Barry Weiss's publication is a great resource

for so many people, me included. So you have been a debater in your past. You know, you,

you, so you can kind of come from this world of, of debate. What, what sparked your interest

in doing this article?

I was really concerned about an activity that changed my life. So many successful ideas came out of this, right?

And it changed my life in such a big, big way. What I saw happening, I just couldn't stay silent.

You know, I competed in high school debate for four years from 2009 to 2013, went off to

college and then came back in 17 as a debate coach.

And it was when I came back as a debate coach, I really saw this ideological hijacking

of what was once a free speech bastion where any idea could

be challenged, any conventional wisdom could be questioned. And that's no longer the case today.

How did these judges, of course, you can, I guess, register yourself as a debate judge and have certain qualifications.

I'm assuming that's what is required.

But with these paradigms, first of all, for our listeners and viewers who didn't hear this original story, describe what a paradigm of a debate judge is.

Absolutely.

A paradigm is essentially an online blog post where a judge gets to post

their thoughts, their expectations for the debate round. Now, originally, Michelle, the way

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