Jubilee Debate: Charlie Kirk Faces Off Against 25 Liberal College Students

In a fiery and passionate debate that quickly took social media by storm, 25 liberal arts college students had the opportunity to outsmart and debate Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA. This debate, which was hosted and presented by Jubilee, took on many controversial topics, including abortion, the value of higher education, gender affirming care, and Kamala Harris’s standing as the current Presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. 

Kirk has faced lots of controversy in his career thanks to his political ambitions. Turning Point USA can best be described as a non-profit organization dedicated to enforcing conservative values in high schools and universities. Aside from being the founder of Turning Point USA, Kirk has a large presence in the political debate scene. During the Jubilee debate, he took on many  amateur and some well-seasoned debaters, which resulted in an intriguing and contrasting dialogue. 

The first topic of debate Kirk presented was the argument that abortion is murder. Throughout the last several years, this specific issue has heated up and become an important factor in elections. Kirk began his argument under the premise of moral viability, explaining how he believes that, regardless of the term or circumstance, termination of the fetus should be considered murder. Throughout the twenty minutes of debate time, several students came up and contributed their thoughts to the debate. One of the largest considerations during this debate topic was the life of the mother, and another was the issue of scientific viability. While well-executed arguments were put up against Kirk’s beliefs, his overly combative debating strategy served to shoot down any relevant points. 

The second topic of the debate was whether college is a scam. The bold claim brought several new students into the conversation. Considering the opposing side was composed of all students, Kirk had more than a few arguments presented towards him. One of the claims brought up during this debate topic was that college is necessary for many professions such as doctors, lawyers, and other vital roles in our society. While college is not for everyone, Kirk’s argument of higher education being a scam was proven to have several inaccuracies and pitfalls. 

Perhaps the most subjective argument presented during the debate was whether Trans women are women. Kirk clarified his definition of a woman as someone born with X, X chromosomes. Kirk believes that the sex you are born as is your undisputable identity. Considering this argument is most heavily based on opinion and lacks scientific explanation, it proved to be a difficult argument to dispute. Despite that, the rebuttal was largely that a woman is anyone who identifies as such and often conforms to a specific set of cultural and social norms. However, another strong argument that arose from the topic was the concept of gender. While Kirk argued there are two specific sexes, male and female, a student on the rebuttal named Parker introduced the specific use of pronouns in the Bible. In the Bible, God is addressed using he/him pronouns and Parker used this to his defense. While Kirk claimed he didn’t believe in the concept of gender, Parker pointed out his self-contradiction. The use of male pronouns in the Bible towards God creates a strong argument supporting the concept of gender. The subjective portrayal of God as a man when he is omnipotent, pointed out the fallacies in Kirk’s argument against trans women and their identity. 

Overall, this engaging and informative debate served to address many important issues. I encourage anyone interested in current political issues to check out this video and do their own research.