Members of Hillsborough High School’s Debate Club have reported alleged gender discrimination within the organization over the past few years. Due to a variety of factors, including interpersonal communication, shifts in political beliefs, and unregulated online discourse, discomfort for female members has worsened over time, leading to some women leaving the club, according to student interviews. 

Female members have reported frustration on how they are treated by fellow debaters. “This is the worst it’s ever been,” an unnamed student said.

“Often it is harder to be taken seriously as a girl. Oftentimes, the guys will not take anyone but themselves seriously. This means they would only ask other guys their questions,” one female debater said.

“The male members in debate make very derogatory remarks throughout every single meeting  because they think it’s funny and their friends laugh at those jokes,” a third unnamed female debater said. 

Yet another member said, “Things that they [male members] would say to us were also sometimes sexist and alluded to the fact that we didn’t deserve our success.”

Other members of HHS Debate disagree. Senior Krishiv Cherlo said gender discrimination is not a major issue, especially with the number of women in the club’s leadership next year.  “So if anything were to be done, maybe it would be to encourage women to speak,” he said.

According to club advisers, six out of eleven leadership positions for the upcoming school year will be filled by women, including the roles of president and vice president.

Junior Andrew Wishnow agreed with Cherlo. “I don’t see gender discrimination as an issue at all in the club,” he said. “The advisers and officers have done a good job on ensuring that the club isn’t dominated by either gender. I think anyone who says there is isn’t either seeing the full background or trying to cause an issue.”

“I don’t actually think that gender discrimination is a major issue at all within HHS Debate, and is rather overblown,” another male member said. He suggested that the issue is gender disparity rather than discrimination, since more male members participate. “Debates can be heated at times, but that’s inherently part of the club. It’s based on politics and personal opinions, so of course, people will make controversial statements and give very passionate speeches that may come off as hostile. If things go too far, which they rarely do, then advisers or officers will step in,” he said.

Cherlo elaborated on how a certain form of debate could contribute to the perceived extreme rhetoric and discrimination within the club. “In Model UN, you’re portraying countries,” he said. “It’s not like you’re representing your own views. If you’re in North Korea, Afghanistan, you have to present these extreme views.  And I think it’s more fun. I think when you role play as your character better, it makes it more fun. I think that it’s just part of being in Model UN.”

However, other male members have noticed gender bias in the club. 

“HHS Debate also has to strike a balance between free speech and freedom from discrimination,” Samuel Strauss, the current Debate Club president, said, “Unfortunately, there are some members of HHS Debate who do not treat our female members with the respect they deserve, but removing them from the club would violate the doctrine that everyone is entitled to their own opinions. There are definitely members of HHS Debate that like to be misogynistic.  Unfortunately, at present, those members are some of the most vocal.” 

“Many men in the club, especially the more right-wing or Republican men, have created a hostile environment for women in general,” sophomore Robert Lombardo said. “They will often speak loudly, harshly, and in an overall brazen manner, all while preaching ideals that are often against women, such as being vehemently pro-life or against DEI. Overall, this discourages women from speaking or even coming to meetings, as I have heard and seen. Sometimes, even if there are no clear incidents of sexism that happen, the toxic environment of the club that is felt by many female members still persists, so much so that some members have elected to skip meetings instead of showing up. This issue is talked about so much because it is ever-persistent with the ever-threatening environment.”

Another anonymous male member said, “There is a group of male speakers within the club that don’t necessarily try to intimidate, but they do it because they think they’re humorous and they think they’re funny. It’s not necessarily to discourage them [the girls], but ultimately that is the result.”

Of gender discrimination in the club, sophomore Aryan Arora said, “This is very prominent during bill and resolution writing where men tend to dominate the conversation and try to pass their ideas over the ideas presented by the women.” He adds that he has seen improvement this year with “more inclusivity and cohesiveness.” 

Debate alumni have also reported an unwelcoming environment. One former female member remarked, “The girls received harsher criticism and received it more. Either they would get hostile questions or comments meant to make them look humiliated or dumb, or they would just not have any questions at all. They would just be ignored.” 

The same alumna also pointed out that the more supportive male members of the club who actually listened were simply tolerant. “They were never going out of their way to help individual girls speak out more often. They never did anything out of their way to actually change the system,” she said.

“HHS Debate strives to create a welcoming environment for all of its members and there is no conscious gender bias in how we run our organization,” Debate adviser Robert Fenster said.  According to Fenster, chairs, students chosen to moderate the debate, are instructed to maintain a gender balance when selecting members to speak, but that can be difficult when female members are reluctant to volunteer to do so. He notes that the club tends to be male-dominated due to societal factors, which cannot be solved through club policy. “At an early age, female students are often discouraged from stating strong opinions, while males tend to be encouraged to be forceful and opinionated,” he said. 

 “There were only rare occasions where such an attitude was overtly visible to the advisers. Any such situation was addressed immediately. That being said, we can’t know what is said and done outside our meetings, whether it was overt comments or more subtle behavioral actions,” Fenster said. 

Current member and future president Aditi Polamuri, a rising junior, said, “The advisers in Debate are some of the most caring, uncompromising, and supportive individuals at HHS, especially when it comes to gender discrimination. As part of leadership, not only have we been told to prioritize equal speaking opportunities for both male and female speakers, we’ve been told to call out any sexism, any measure of discrimination and end it with as much finality as possible.”

Polamuri notes that gender discrimination is often subtle, but present. “The few instances I’ve had with gender discrimination are either by those too cowardly to say it face-to face, or those who cannot say what they mean clearly, instead hiding it in passive aggressive comments or in jokes,” she said.

Another female member noted that male debaters would be taken more seriously and that the snubs add up. “It’s not always about big dramatic moments. It’s the small stuff that wears on you. The eye rolls, the talking over, etc.,” she said.

Lombardo added, “Gender discrimination to a lot of people is seen as a joke or an overblown situation, and we need to truly help others understand that it is a serious issue that mustn’t be ignored. Once we create a more supportive and understanding culture around this issue, I believe progress will be much more evident.”

Fenster noted that he has seen improvement in gender dynamics in the club in recent years. “It takes a young woman with a stronger sense of self to transcend those obstacles, and I’m happy to say that we’ve had many over the years do just that,” he said. He also expects even more improvement next year. “The good news is that in the last couple of years, we’ve seen a lot more social blending between various groups of students in the club. We will have a female president, Polamuri, next year, and among the other ten officers, five are female. Most of the officers who were selected focused, at least in part, on building an environment of inclusion and respect. The full slate of officers is determined to ensure female members feel comfortable in the club, allowing them to reach their potential as debaters,” Fenster said. Fenster added that twenty-eight out of forty-six of the students that are signed up to participate in Debate next year are female. 

Concerns of gender bias were seemingly heightened during the contentious election year, and they were especially apparent in the weeks leading up to the 2024 Presidential Election. “At the first meeting, there’s all these guys showing up in MAGA hats with a huge Trump flag,” former member Lilia Roberts-Churchill said, “and I mean, if you have a flag with a rapist’s name on it, it’s not a very welcoming space for women.”

This action definitely made many students uncomfortable, another female member said. “You don’t see anyone who may have supported, for example, Biden or Kamala Harris, and so because it’s so one-sided, everyone who doesn’t agree with those values I think feels suppressed and pushed down because [the MAGA supporters] are so loud with their voices and opinions,” she said.

The members who did take part had differing perspectives, however. According to Cherlo, those actions were not intended to offend or attack anyone, as people from across the political spectrum participated in them. “I don’t think it was symbolic of anything political as much as it was  just political nerds having some fun,” he stated. 

Strauss, a self-proclaimed liberal, said he now has second thoughts about his participation in wearing MAGA gear to the meeting and the message that it could have sent to club members. “I heavily regret being a part of that,” he said. “It definitely could have made people uncomfortable.”

As the Debate Club’s advisers, Fenster, Mr. Christopher Ryalls, and Mr. Louis DiGirolamo must navigate the fine line between acceptable and unacceptable expression in an environment that prizes freedom of speech. “It’s not within our purview to dictate anyone’s political beliefs or denigrate them for it,” Ryalls said.

It is not simply the gender bias that has members concerned, however. In a particularly heated debate regarding police reform, racist rhetoric, such as how African-Americans are more violent in nature, was brought up by a member. Despite intervention by the advisers, “No one really spoke out against it as much as they should have, even though every single person unanimously agreed that what he said was wrong,” said one member who witnessed the scene. 

These factors may have contributed to  a much higher attrition rate for new female debaters than new males. According to an anonymous female member, “Women feel so uncomfortable that they can’t even feel comfortable showing up to meetings anymore.”

“At the start of the school year,” one debater said, “we have more girls interested than guys usually, but almost exponentially, these girls leave, and by the end of the year, we only have a few left, and if you check the number of girls who are signed up on Classroom, a majority of them don’t show up to meetings regularly, and this doesn’t happen with the guys.”

Ryalls further commented that the higher attrition rate of female members has been a long-running theme. “It can be intimidating, to walk into the room and see especially the more senior members, who are very good at what they do,” he said. Public speaking can be hard for any student, but would be even harder if a female student feels devalued or hears discouraging comments, he explained.

Concerns of gender bias extend beyond meetings as well. “Where you really see some of the blatant discriminatory language and hostile language come forth is in group chats,” one female member stated.

According to student interviews, these chats primarily take place on Google Hangouts or Google Space on school-sponsored Google accounts and devices. These online forums are places where debate club members can discuss a variety of issues, which may or may not be related to the club, without oversight or moderation from advisers, teachers, or parents. These discussions often turned heated and political, and students often used discriminatory language that is targeted toward women and minorities.

Kailey Chadwick, an alumna in the Class of 2024, stated, “It would be from anything like sometimes borderline racist to just straight up degrading [to women], especially the comments about abortion-related stuff and being pro-life.”

One anonymous debater read out a quote from a male member in one of these chats: “‘Good things in Black culture to keep: Soul food, fried chicken, music, hip hop, rap, R&B. Things I don’t really care about: Sports in general, basketball, football. [Expletive] to remove: Anti-white or reparation calls, black-ccent, ghetto accent, crap fashion, bad financial literacy.’”

People in these group chats also make Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian, and anti-Semitic comments. One member recounted, “There was one person who said that the Palestinians are barbaric and they call for the destruction of the state of Israel, and it’s because they hate Jews.” 

In a Google Space, a group chat, created for this past year’s Boston conference, in which the 12 members chosen for the trip discussed trip details, examples of misogynistic rhetoric were seen as well, including a reference to the four female members as “DEI hires.”

In another group chat, Roberts-Churchill said that people wrote homophobic and misogynistic comments. “‘Homosexuality is disease,’ ‘it’s unnatural,’ or that ‘women can’t be president because they’re too emotional.’ Multiple slurs were dropped, including the F slur,” she said. According to her, these arguments were intended by male members to rage-bait the female members into arguments, which is the act of deliberately making provocative statements to incite anger in others. “And I don’t know how much of it they actually believed, and how much was just a joke,” she said. 

In addition, females within these group chats say that they are often excluded by male members. “They form their own group chats,” another female member said, “and they specifically say that girls aren’t allowed to be a part of them. And whenever a girl tries to say anything or disagree with them, it always ends up with the girls being targeted by the entire group. It happens very, very often.”

However, several debaters said they do not believe such words should be taken seriously. “For the discrimination thing, I don’t really think there’s anything that was said by that,” Cherlo said. “I don’t think it was meant in bad faith. It was just meant as how people in high school are just talking to each other as friends. Not to discriminate someone or put negative pressure towards someone.” 

“At the end of the day, because we’re all friends, we’re all trying to annoy each other to a degree, but not trying to start a fight. It’s just for fun,” a male member said.

Furthermore, the club’s advisers are mostly powerless to control the language used in the chats, particularly when these comments remain unreported. “Everything outside of school channels is largely beyond our direct control,” Ryalls said.

Ryalls elaborated. “The people who can best moderate that are officers. We are hopeful that our officers will be kind of the eyes and ears of that,” he said. 

Mr. Joel Handler, the Director of Technology for Hillsborough Township Public Schools, explained that the district monitors several types of inappropriate speech using AI. This AI is specifically a large language model that not only looks for keywords but also analyzes the context of specific statements to understand and flag potentially inappropriate intentions. 

Principal Jeffrey DiLollo further elaborated that chats are flagged based on the risk that the messages pose to the student, their peers, and the school as a whole. Threats to school safety, indications of self-harm, and uses of discriminatory language are addressed accordingly.

Although Handler said that the system has done a pretty good job, he also admits that it has its shortcomings. “The one issue we run into,” he said, “is the manpower required to look at all this content. Hundreds and thousands of conversations are happening all the time.” Because all flagged content must be checked by a human reviewer before it is passed onto the counseling department or the administration, the number of people available to check the content is a major bottleneck in this process. “Nothing’s foolproof,” Handler said.

DiLollo said that reviewing flagged content has increased administrative duties. “A lot of the flagged content must be reviewed by a human,” DiLollo stated. 

In addition, DiLollo said that turning off Google Chat as some schools have done may not be the right call for Hillsborough. “There are great examples of young people who are using it for all the right reasons. And you’re going to be in Slack and Google Hangout as part of your workplace and your college life. So if you’re not getting the experience of not only using the technology here, but navigating the challenging situations,  I don’t know  that that’s wise.  Actually, I argue it’s not wise,” he said.

He also said, “I think one of the things we always have to be careful of is that  you guys are young adults navigating the world  and I can’t protect you in every way  from  real world experiences.  To a certain extent I would be robbing you if I did that  and so I always walk a very careful line.” 

In response to all of the above concerns, HHS Debate has made efforts to limit gender bias and discrimination within the club. In any school club, advisers are responsible for the physical and emotional safety of members. They mediate between students, mentors, and student leaders, DiLollo said. Advisers also report to Vice Principal Mr. Colin Simpson, both formally and informally, since part of his job is to oversee clubs and organizations, according to DiLollo.

“I think that leadership in debate tries their best to encourage a safe, kind, and welcoming community, and the presence of a few close-minded people are the source of any gender discrimination,” sophomore member Katharine Trujillo said.

The advisers know that there is an issue and they have tried to address it by encouraging female members to speak, an anonymous female debater said. “I don’t think that they’re necessarily doing much to fix the culture, just reactively addressing issues as they arise, as opposed to stopping the issues before they start,” she said.

“Within HHS Debate, sexism and gender discrimination have been addressed by many people seeking to remedy the problem,” Lombardo stated. “However, the main issue is that even when called out, men still continue their actions. They seem to get some kind of emboldenment from each other, and hardly cease their harmful actions, even after scrutiny from myself, others, and even officers or advisors.”

Lombardo praised Debate’s advisers and student leadership for the measures they have adopted to counter gender discrimination, but he believes that more action is needed. “Personally, I would advocate for the team to be more harsh on perpetrators,” he said. “I would call for more intervention from the team when gender discrimination is seen, and I would call for suspensions from the club for repeat offenders.”

“I have very rarely seen guys get any consequences for the things that they’re saying at debate other than just a slap on the wrist,” an anonymous female member said. “They absolutely could give harsher consequences for making these inappropriate comments, but they just don’t do it.”

In their efforts to address this issue, the advisers have created a new participation agreement for members for the 2025-2026 school year. Within the document, which all members of the club and their parents are required to sign, there are specific provisions to  “promote open-minded, inclusive dialogue” and “avoid divisive or alienating behavior,” in order to encourage  more healthy discussions within the club.

Another provision requires members to “rotate seating and discussion groups to ensure all voices are heard and valued.” This stipulation specifically targets the physical split between males and females within the club. In the debate room, girls sit on one side of the aisle, while boys sit on the other, and this has been the case for several years. According to students and alumni, this divide has contributed significantly to the alienation between male and female members. 

Rotating seats may help to alleviate this issue. “There’s a lot of conversation that takes place before and after the debate and sometimes even during,” Ryalls said, “So the people who are sitting near you are people you’ll get to know. It’s easy to hide in your clique where you feel safe and comfortable, and sometimes it also fosters some of the discourse which can go the wrong direction because you’ve got your group and feel safer saying things that maybe you wouldn’t say when you were with people of more variety of opinion.”

In addition, the doubling of the ranks of senior mentors, who aid and guide new members, has also been a significant step. “After hearing so many kids identify the value of the role models along the way, it just seemed like that really could be a difference maker, especially if you’re a young member concerned about speaking in front of the group,” Ryalls said. “Male or female, to have a mentor giving you that push, giving you the confidence, the help along the way, we’re hoping that that really helps the younger members moving forward.”

Next year, three of the six mentors will be women. One female member discussed the benefits of seeing accomplished females leading and mentoring others, recounting her experience with them last year. “Those were definitely great examples of really accomplished female debaters who were really great mentors, and they had really great advice to give and they were very encouraging,” she said.

DiLollo encourages students within the club who can provide insights into experiences with discrimination to reach out to him to discuss the matter confidentially. As principal, he aims to remove any institutional barriers that may be holding back any students. “I’d like to speak to anybody who’d want to speak to me and hear first-hand accounts of their experiences,” he said.

According to DiLollo, there has been a shift in recent years toward encouraging more student leadership in these organizations, with the adviser assuming the roles of facilitator and responsible party. “There’s a lot of capability in student leaders today and an eagerness to take on those leadership roles,” he said.

Overall, the advisers feel that it may be necessary for them to take a more active role in regulating the discussions and culture of debate. “We feel like we’ve missed some things along the way,” Ryalls said, “because there were things that people were very concerned about that somehow we didn’t really catch. We’re pretty well stepped back, and perhaps we need to step forward a little.” 

One of next year’s female debaters said, “I do think that there is a lot of hope for the club. I think moving forward, if we accept that there is an issue and actually try to make some change, I don’t think it’ll take much time at all to get more and more girls feeling comfortable in the debate club.”