Affirmative Action

Our Women's Officer, Nupur Upadhyay, wants you to bring more girls.

Australs has a proud history of supporting female participation in debating. Some of Australasia’s most talented female speakers have taken part in this competition and 2010 will be no exception. By signing up to the tournament you agree to meet the affirmative action requirements set down by the AIDA Council.

What you need to do:

• Make sure that one third of your squad is female. A squad includes debaters and adjudicators (trust us, we should know);
• Make sure that one third of your top three teams is female;
• When in doubt, round up and send more girls rather than less – otherwise you’ll be in breach of the requirement.

What happens if you get it wrong:

If the affirmative action quota is not achieved, all teams from that university will be ineligible to compete in the final series, subject to the exercise of discretion of Australasian Council.

If that’s you:

First, we recommend downloading the AIDA Constitution, as it’s the authorative source of the guidelines we have set out on this page. You can download it here.

Second, note that Council may only exercise discretion by reason of the grounds listed below and only where the university debating association has notified the AIDA Executive of its inability to meet the affirmative action quota because of these reasons at least 14 days before the commencement of the tournament.

Council may exercise discretion over the affirmative action requirement when:

One out of three. It's just that easy.

• The university debating association is so small that the affirmative action requirement would be difficult to apply; or where
• The university debating association is a relatively new participant in debating tournaments; or where
• The university debating association has had inadequate notice of the affirmative  action requirement.
• A member/members of the university’s contingent has pulled out due to extreme, unforeseeable or emergency circumstances, immediately preceding the tournament. Eg: A member of a contingent has pulled out due to a car accident, hospitalization, or a death in the family.

For the third exception, note that where the host institution’s website for registration outlines the constitutional provisions and Schedule 4 relating to affirmative action during the registration period, notice is deemed to be provided to all university debating associations (so don’t count on that one).

When exercising discretion, Council may decide to:

• Disallow teams from the contingent from being eligible to compete in the finals series;  or
• Specify that certain teams from the contingent be ineligible to compete in the finals series; or
• Allow all teams from the contingent to be eligible to compete in the finals series provided they are otherwise eligible to compete.

Also note, sensibly, that universities which do not admit female students are not bound by the affirmative action requirement.

Finally when it comes time to vote, all votes regarding the exercise of discretion over the affirmative action requirement must be conducted by secret ballot.