In mid-May of 2026, a large group of CARD students (6 from the University of Oregon and 13 from Western Washington University) spent a weekend in Detroit as part of the Debate+ project. This past year, our debate topic centered on labor law, unionization, and collective bargaining rights. As part of our exploration of place-based learning activities, we decided there was really no place better than Detroit to dig a little deeper and engage labor issues beyond the journal articles and topic lectures.

The visit started off with an exceptionally rewarding day, and a powerful example of how place-based learning can play a very meaningful role in debate education. Our first stop was at the Walter P. Reuther Library and Labor Archives at Wayne State University, where we spent roughly two hours exploring what may well be the most significant labor archives in the world. An archivist took us on a guided tour throughout the facility, offering insight into the preservation of labor history and fielding questions all along the way. She was impressed with the unusually high quality of questions from our students, and we were equally impressed with the high quality of her answers.

The highlight was an interactive archival exercise in which the students took on the role of archivists themselves. Working directly with historical records associated with the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, they were tasked with examining, interpreting, and making sense of primary source materials. It was gratifying to watch a bunch of students who have spent months debating unions and labor policy engage directly with the historical traces of workers and organizers whose experiences helped shape the contours of those very conversations. Seeing them handle the materials, ask questions, and wrestle with historical parallels brought the topic to life in ways that added some depth and context to their understanding, serving as a nice complement to their traditional research and preparation.

Later in the day, we visited the Detroit Institute of Arts for a guided tour of the famous Rivera Murals. Even after reading about them beforehand, it is difficult to convey the scale, scope, complexity, and sheer presence of seeing the murals in person. Our two docents led an engaging discussion about labor, industry, technology, class, race, gender, and power— all themes that were common elements of our debates throughout the season. The murals very much offer their own visual argument: dynamic, layered, contested, and deeply human. Watching our students stand before them, asking questions and connecting their debates to art, history, and lived experience underscored what makes this project so meaningful. The students then also had a few hours to freely explore the rest of the DIA's extensive collections, which have been rated as one of the premier museums in the country.

The second day of programming began with an approximately two-hour question-and-answer session with a representative from the United Auto Workers (UAW). This conversation proved to be one of the most meaningful and memorable experiences of the trip. Originally planned to take place near Detroit’s labor memorial, Transcending, the session instead unfolded under far less ideal circumstances due to major construction in Hart Plaza and a sudden storm involving heavy rain, thunder, lightning, and significant traffic noise. Our group ultimately crowded together beneath a nearby shelter while the discussion continued amid the noise and chaos of downtown Detroit.

In an odd but fitting way, the circumstances themselves became quietly symbolic of the very labor history we had come to study. The conversation required constant adaptation, patience, and persistence in the face of obstacles—qualities that have long defined labor organizing itself. Workers who fought for safer workplaces, fair wages, collective bargaining rights, and dignity on the job rarely did so under ideal conditions. Progress emerged not because the path was easy or orderly, but because people continued organizing despite uncertainty, resistance, instability, and hardship. Even amid the storm and disruptions around us, the discussion endured, and in doing so unintentionally echoed one of the central lessons of labor history: meaningful change is often the product of perseverance through difficult circumstances.

Despite the disruptions, the UAW representative handled the situation with remarkable patience, humor, and generosity. For students who had spent months debating unionization, collective bargaining, labor law, and worker rights in academic settings, the opportunity to speak directly with someone who had participated in labor struggles over the course of decades was invaluable. The conversation moved well beyond abstract policy discussion. Students heard firsthand accounts of organizing campaigns, workplace struggles, victories, frustrations, and the emotional realities associated with labor activism.

Equally important was the representative’s ability to connect with students as young adults. He created an environment where students felt comfortable asking questions while also encouraging them to move beyond simplified narratives about unions and labor conflict. Particularly powerful were the moments when he shared personal stories and emotional reflections from his own life and organizing experiences. It became clear very quickly that these issues were not merely intellectual or political for him—they were deeply personal. That authenticity gave the conversation a weight and immediacy that classroom materials simply cannot replicate.

Many of our students later identified this discussion as one of the highlights of the trip precisely because it felt “real.” It represented an opportunity to engage directly with someone whose life had been shaped by the labor struggles they had previously encountered primarily through academic texts and debate rounds. The experience reinforced one of the central goals of Debate+: helping students recognize that policy debates are ultimately connected to real people, communities, and lived experiences.

Our final site visit was to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History (“The Wright”). Although not specifically focused on labor policy, the museum provided essential historical and cultural context that deepened our students’ understanding of labor history in the United States and in Detroit specifically. The exhibits traced the African American experience from slavery and plantation life through the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, the Civil Rights Movement, and beyond. Importantly, the museum consistently connected these broader national histories to Detroit itself. Students encountered discussions of the Underground Railroad, the Great Migration, the opportunities and tensions associated with industrial labor in the auto industry, and the flourishing of Black artistic and cultural life through institutions such as Motown.

This broader sociocultural framing proved especially valuable because it situated labor history within larger systems of race, migration, inequality, and resistance. Students were able to see more clearly how labor struggles cannot be fully understood apart from questions of racial justice, economic opportunity, political exclusion, and community formation. In this sense, The Wright complemented the trip’s labor-focused components by helping students understand the wider human and historical context in which labor organizing developed.

Experiences like these continue to reinforce the idea that in addition to competition, debate education can also be experiential, place-based, and rooted in encounters with the people, institutions, and histories which inform and embody the very issues that we debate about. Taken together, these site visits offered a vivid example of that possibility, and it was validating to see our students meet these opportunities with curiosity, engagement, and thoughtful reflection. Our debate students often develop extensive technical knowledge about policies, legal frameworks, and theoretical arguments. However, there can sometimes remain a degree of distance between those debates and the lived realities they concern. The Detroit experience helped narrow that gap. Students did not simply discuss labor history; they handled archival records connected to labor activism. They did not merely read about industrial labor; they stood before artistic representations of it and collaboratively discussed their meaning. They did not debate unions on a solely theoretical plane; they spoke directly with an experienced labor organizer whose life and identity had been shaped by those struggles. They also encountered labor history as it intersected with the broader context of African American history, migration, culture, and social change.

Throughout the trip, students demonstrated high levels of engagement, curiosity, and reflection. Conversations frequently continued long after the formal activities ended, with students making connections between historical events, contemporary labor issues, racial inequality, and the debate topic itself. Experiences like these suggest that place-based learning can deepen not only student knowledge, but also empathy, critical thinking, and the ability to connect academic inquiry to real-world human experiences.

It is important to note that the educational value of this project extends well beyond the trips themselves. The site visits and experiences in Detroit are intended to serve as the foundation for a range of post-travel academic and creative projects that allow students to reflect on, synthesize, and communicate what they learned. Students will produce artifacts such as research papers, campus presentations, multimedia projects, and a documentary connected to the themes explored during the trip. In this sense, the travel experience is not an endpoint, but rather the beginning of a broader process of inquiry, reflection, and public-facing scholarship. A central goal of Debate+ is not only to expose students to meaningful experiences, but also to encourage them to transform those experiences into thoughtful academic work that can contribute to conversations both within and beyond our more conventional debate spaces.

-Korry Harvey (Assistant Director, Western Washington University)