Louisville’s innovation was to turn the focus of the debate away from the resolution and onto the activity of policy debate, itself, with all its inherent hierarchies and biases. The debate round no longer was a referendum on whether the United States should send submarines to explore the Spratley Islands, but rather what it meant that a team of underprivileged, minority students at Louisville were asked to conform to standards of debate that only benefitted more privileged students at, say, Dartmouth or Northwestern.