National Sponsor

The Arthur N. Rupe Foundation exists because it wishes to bring about an improvement in society, to be a positive influence on American life. In the founder’s words, the Foundation exists “to shine the light of truth on critical and controversial issues through the support of scholarly studies, education, research, and public debates, and by the dissemination of the results via a variety of media to all segments of the public. This should accrue to society’s benefit and further fulfillment of universal individual freedom and its promise of true democracy.”

The Foundation believes that debate forms the core of a healthy American democracy. Over the years, the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation has provided grants to support an array of debate programs. The foundation is committed to advancing civil and structured debate as a means of discussing the vital issues of our time.

In 2009, the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation provided a generous grant to the National Forensic League to promote Public Forum Debate across the country. In addition to sponsoring the Rupe Foundation Qualifying Series of Public Forum Topics in February, March, and April, the Rupe Foundation grant also created a research portal to provide the highest quality educational research resources and exclusive interviews to the debate community and the public at large.

Additionally, over four hundred high school students from every state in the country will be named Rupe Scholars and will qualify to compete at the 2011 NFL National Speech & Debate Tournament held in Dallas, Texas from June 13th to June 18th. The NFL National Tournament is the largest high school competition in the world with over 3,500 qualifying competitors pulled from a national field of 95,000 participating students. Nearly one thousand high schools will participate in this year’s competition.

The Rupe Scholars will compete in Arthur N. Rupe Foundation Public Forum Debates at the NFL National Tournament where the top fourteen teams will receive generous college scholarships as part of the grant. The Arthur N. Rupe Foundation Championship Round of Public Forum Debate will be held on June 18th, 2011 and will be open to the public. At 7pm, the Arthur N. Rupe Champion will be announced as part of the NFL Awards Ceremony.