Dear Colleagues,

The Silicon Valley Urban Debate League (SVUDL) presents:

The John Lewis SVUDL Invitational, formerly known as the SCU Dempsey-Cronin (aka SCU 1).

The Silicon Valley Urban Debate League has taken ownership of the SCU Dempsey Cronin, and will be running a hybrid Speech and Debate invitational to be held the weekend before Thanksgiving, from Nov 21-23.

All proceeds from this tournament will go to the Silicon Valley Urban Debate League, a local nonprofit organization that helps students uncover and hone the power of their voices, so they can confidently step into their full potential as professional and community leaders.

SVUDL is pleased to continue to honor the legacy of the late Congressman John Lewis by naming this Speech and Debate tournament after him. Born near Troy, Alabama in 1940, Congressman Lewis devoted his life to securing civil rights, fair and equal access to voting rights, and was a tireless soldier who literally and repeatedly risked his life in the movement against racial segregation and injustice.

We are also pleased to announce that we are again a NIETOC designated bid tournament for those interested in the National Individual Events Tournament of Champions. We are also designated as a bid tournament for Speech and Public Forum for the Tournament of Champions, held by the University of Kentucky. We are happy to announce that for this year, the TOC has designated us as a quarterfinals gold and octo finals silver bid for Public Forum.

This will be a hybrid tournament, with all Speech events and Congress held in person at TBD

All other Debate events (LD, PF, Parli, Policy, World Schools) will be held online using the NSDA Campus platform.

All Debate formats will start Friday, November 21 this year. Speech events and Congress start Saturday, November 22.

Due to the hybrid nature of the tournament, students will not be allowed to double enter across Speech and Debate events.

However, students are welcome to double enter in Speech. Congress students may also double enter in Speech. However, the tournament cannot give students extra time to get to rounds if they double enter.

All tournament registration will be on Tabroom.com. Information regarding online platform use for the tournament will be released in the coming weeks.

Please note that the schedule listed is tentative. Depending on the size of entry, the schedule may be adjusted.

If you have any questions regarding the tournament or registration, please email Tournament Director Mariel Cruz at cruznmariel@gmail.com

Please note, we may make adjustments to our tournament procedures to bring us more in line with other national tournaments. Coaches will be notified of any changes made as soon as they have been finalized. Any updates will also be posted here on Tabroom.

Deadlines

The system will accept new entries until Wednesday, November 19, 2025 at 8:00pm. Make drops and adds through Tabroom after that up until the tournament begins. However, changes or drops made after Thursday, November 20, 2025 at 8pm forfeit their entry fees. All space in Debate and Speech will be allocated on a first come, first served basis; register early!

TBA Entries

All TBA Entries will be waitlisted until names are entered. Any TBA entries without names after the registration deadline will be removed from the tournament.

Divisions

All Speech and Debate events will offer a novice and open division. We reserve the right to collapse divisions if entry size is too small for two separate divisions.

World Schools will be one division.

Novice is defined as a student’s first year of competition, or student in their second year if they have competed in fewer than 5 tournaments, and did not advance to elims in any division, regardless of debate format.

Patterns

Debate Pattern: Policy, Parliamentary, Public Forum and Lincoln-Douglas Debate - held online

World Schools will follow its own schedule and will also be online

Congress in one pattern - in person at TBD

All Speech events will be in one pattern, in person at TBD

Speech Elims

In the TOC Speech events we will break the top 6 to finals in events that have up to 30 entries. Divisions with more than 30 entries will have the top 12 advance to Semi-Finals, divisions with more than 51 entries will have three sections of Semi-finals with 6 competitors advancing to finals, and divisions with more than 85 entries will break to a quarterfinal. We will award trophies up to the top 6 in all speech events, and medals to Semifinalists and Quarterfinals. Placement will be determined by cumulative ranking. Events with 30+ will have a semis and a finals. Non-TOC NIETOC events above 51 contestants will have a Semifinal with 6 entries per section.

General Tournament Procedures

The tournament will consist of six preliminary debate rounds for varsity, five prelims debate rounds for novice, and four preliminary rounds of varsity and novice speech events. We reserve the right to combine divisions if the entry warrants.

Semifinals will be held in individual events with 50 or more entries or the discretion of the tournament director. Undersubscribed events may waive finals.

Tournament Caps and Waitlist

Due to the size of the tournament, we will be placing caps on the debate events. Each school will be allotted 4 entries per division per debate event. All entries over the caps will be waitlisted.

Entries may also be waitlisted if the tournament reaches capacity. Schools will be moved off the waitlist as space opens up. Schools that have not already taken up their allotted slots in each event will be moved first, and schools with completed judge entries will also be given preference. Remaining waitlisted entries will be moved on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Congress

Please designate the PO's with a 'po' for every ten entries via email to cruznmariel@gmail.com. Please note that Congress judges will be listed under IE's. Please enter Congress judges into the IE judge pool. Bills will be included in the official tournament invite, which will be posted on the tournament webpage on Tabroom.com a couple weeks prior to the start of the tournament.

We invite members of the community to submit legislation for the Congress tournament. Please emailcruznmariel@gmail.comwith your legislation. A finalized set of bills will be released in November.

Event Rules

Public Forum, LD, and Policy will be using the following NSDA procedures for round format, but CHSSA procedures regarding evidence.

Generally we use NSDA rules for all speech events but there are exceptions: Extemp is combined national and international. CHSSA rules will be used for Impromptu, OI, and OPP.

Parli will also follow CHSSA rules.