Our commitment
Accessibility
We want every student, family member, educator, and judge to take part fully — on this website and at the tournament. This page explains how these resources are built for accessibility and how to request an accommodation.
Our standard
These web resources are designed to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA.
These pages are in active development. If you encounter a barrier — on the site or in our documents — please tell us (see below) so we can correct it quickly.
How we’ve built these pages
- Logical structure: a single main heading per page, properly nested headings, and meaningful page regions for screen-reader navigation.
- Skip link and full keyboard access with a visible focus outline.
- Readable color contrast meeting or exceeding WCAG AA ratios; descriptive links; accessible tables with captions and headers.
- Responsive, zoomable text; respects the “reduce motion” setting; print-friendly.
- Plain language, with a Glossary for specialized terms.
Accommodations at the tournament
We welcome participants, families, and judges with disabilities. Accommodations we can arrange include:
- Wheelchair-accessible convention rooms, seating, and routes.
- Materials in alternate formats (large print, digital, or plain-text).
- Dietary accommodations for the provided lunch.
Note your request during registration on SpeechWire, and/or contact the organizers directly: email Professor Candy Brown at [email protected] or text 812-269-2710. Please make requests as early as possible so that we can honor requests to the fullest extent possible.
Indiana University Bloomington students, staff, and faculty can also work with IU Bloomington Accessible Educational Services for access questions. Students from other institutions are encouraged to work with their own schools’ accessibility offices as well.
Sources & credits
For transparency, here is where the content on these pages comes from:
- Format & rules: Constitutional Convention Debate is a new event created for this tournament. Its procedures adapt the published Congressional Debate guidelines of the National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA) and the Indiana Schools Speech and Debate Association (ISSDA), together with the rules adopted by the Federal Convention of 1787 as recorded in Madison’s notes.
- Sample proposals: written originally for this tournament. Each names the founding-era source it draws on; several reference landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases, named in the proposal’s anchor or notes.
- Founding references: the Declaration of Independence (1776), the U.S. Constitution (1787), the Bill of Rights (1791), The Federalist, and Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance (1785), which are in the public domain.
- Logos: the America 250 (IU Bloomington), College of Arts + Sciences, and Walter Center for Career Achievement marks are used courtesy of Indiana University.
- Accessibility approach: the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA.
Tell us about a barrier
If any part of this site or its documents is difficult to use, or if you’d like content in a different format, please let us know — email Professor Candy Brown at [email protected] or text 812-269-2710. When you write, it helps to include the page or document, what you were trying to do, and the device or assistive technology you were using.
Related: the FAQ answers common questions, and the Schedule describes the flow of the day, including recesses.