Seaver College Debate Team Takes Home Awards at 2025 Social Justice Debates National Championship
The Seaver College debate team recently competed at the 2025 Social Justice Debates National Championship hosted by Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. The Pepperdine team experienced historic success—capturing awards in both the Open and Novice Divisions, while civic team president Chase Jackson excelled as an individual and emerged from the event ranked second in the nation for the 2024–25 debate season.
“This group of students is really special,” says Abi Smith, director of Pepperdine’s debate team. “They all come from different backgrounds and have such passion and perseverance. This year, we found our footing in the Social Justice Debates because of hard work, commitment, and a major time investment.”
The Social Justice Debates series, founded nine years ago by representatives from Morehouse College and George Washington University, follows a regimented format structured around a yearly theme. This year each of the three competitions (preliminary, regionals, and nationals) was focused on the topic of combatting homelessness. Students from around the country invested months researching, writing, and honing their viewpoints in order to excel in the competitive debate arena.
Despite traditionally struggling to accrue success in Social Justice Debate contests, Pepperdine’s representatives—Liana Chekrygun, Leilain Frailich, Jackson, Lainey Power, Ellie Scoggins, Ashleigh Weinstock, and Hanmo Yang—were passionate about playing an active role in developing their two competing approaches to mitigating homelessness. This commitment to the topic fuelled their research and inspired novel solutions to the problem.
“Our students engage in lots of first-person research,” says Smith. “They’ll go out into the community to ask people and experts questions. Throughout the season, they develop creative solutions using their findings. This year, for instance, one student developed an idea to humanize homelessness through social media. Another brainstormed a way to repurpose unused prisons to create comfortable housing for those without a roof over their heads.”
Using innovative ideas like the two listed above, as well as a variety of conventionally researched arguments, Pepperdine’s team advanced further in the competition than ever before. In the Open Division, where students with more than a year of experience square off, Frailich and Chekrygun cracked the nation’s top eight in the quarterfinals. In the Novice Division, which is reserved for first-year debaters, Jackson and Yang were named runners-up after advancing to the championship round. This positive performance elevated Jackson to number two in the national individual rankings—a metric that takes into account his performance throughout the season at other events.
The team’s Social Justice Debates National Championship performance highlighted the consistent effort made by Seaver College’s debaters. Made up of 20 members from different academic disciplines, students invest two hours a week in formal practice; however, Smith claims that participants often commit 10 additional hours to developing their own research and written arguments. Students will carry the extracurricular advocacy experience they gain through the debate team with its emphasis on reasoning and persuasive writing beyond their undergraduate education.
“Your ability to advocate on behalf of yourself and your community cannot be taken from you,” says Smith. “It is empowering for students of all backgrounds to find a space where they can be seen, heard, and valued. I believe Pepperdine’s debate team cultivates such a community and builds the confidence of our student competitors.”