A Venn diagram of political positions agreed upon by former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy would show little overlap. But Incubate Debate founder James Fishback recently brought them together to hold a joint master class to prepare students for the national championship of his upstart debating forum.

I know from experience what a good program this is. Last November, Incubate Debate asked me to help prepare students for a debate on immigration policy. These kids didn’t start with any preconceptions. They asked good questions and had open minds—a refreshing change from Washington.

Earlier this month, I helped judge Incubate’s national championship in Florida. Some 5,000 participants from public and private middle and high schools across four states had been whittled down to 90 finalists. The topics: whether former President Donald Trump was guilty of the Jan. 6 charges, whether the U.S. should intervene if China invades Taiwan, and whether there is a climate emergency.

Tough issues—and of national importance.

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In contrast, this month’s “extemporaneous questions” posted by the “national authority on public speaking and debate,” the National Speech and Debate Association, were larded with implied critical theory. Examples included “How should the education system be reformed to address systemic inequities?” and “How can the federal government do more to promote Latino/a/x entrepreneurship?”

The topic of Incubate Debate’s championship round was “Should college DEI (“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”) programs be abolished?” The finalists spoke eloquently for and against the motion. To institutions captured by dogma, there is only one answer to sensitive questions and one allowed position. Dissent is crushed.

As Mr. Fishback wrote last year in The Free Press, at the National Speech and Debate Association, “judges with paradigms tainted by politics and ideology are becoming common.” Incubate Debate, in contrast, believes in “debates that are open to wide viewpoints and voices … where students are open to learning and open to disagreement.”

“John,” a colleague of mine who once earned the association’s Premier Distinction, told me of “a concerning trend of some judges—and even competitors—to reject topics or arguments because they do not conform to their vision of the world.”

For example, in a state championship tournament focused on how to prevent school shootings, John once argued that an assault weapons ban was politically unfeasible. One judge ranked him last for this because, in that judge’s opinion, advocating against a weapons ban was morally unacceptable. But as John says, “that is antithetical to the purpose of speech and debate. It is absolutely acceptable to receive low ranks because an argument is not persuasive, but not because a judge is offended by an argument.”

Indeed, difficult topics, taking the opposite position from your beliefs, and respectful disagreement are the essence of debate. Saddened that the Speech and Debate Association has abandoned these core principles, Mr. Fishback started the alternative Incubate Debate, which has grown by leaps and bounds in only a few years.

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Surely, the reason for this growth is that kids and their parents long for civility in public discourse. They want to be rewarded for hard work and achievement, not for what they look like or where they come from. They can sense that the current polarized, shouting-match politics is not working, and they imagine a better way. Incubate Debate fosters and trains them not just in persuasive argument but in civil discourse and good manners.

After two days of preliminary rounds, the eight finalists on the stage were distinct and diverse in every way. Because Incubate Debate accepts interested kids as they are and explicitly rejects race and sex preferences, the diversity of the finalists was not achieved through social engineering. It came about through the classically American process of people choosing their own paths, competing and succeeding.

The finalists’ eloquence, facility with facts, and preparation were striking. But more incredible to me, as a former middle and high school teacher, was how these kids—ranging from sixth to 12th grade—impeccably followed the debate rules and allowed one another to speak. They treated each other with respect.

If we expect to ever see that culture again on the national political stage, we need to support its return in K-12 schools. Incubate Debate is succeeding in that, and it is reason to hope that Generation Z may yet save not only high school debate but the republic itself.