SANTA FE, N.M. – The New Mexico Speech and Debate Association isn’t interested in debating with homeschoolers.

The association’s leadership made that painfully clear to the Jemez Mountain Home School Speech and Debate Team by banning the group from participating in debate competitions in the Land of Enchantment.

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“According to (New Mexico Activities Association) rules and NMSDA By-laws, we are sorry to inform you that we cannot accept your registration for the NMSDA Speech and Debate State Tournaments unless you are a member school of NMAA,” Lisa Lincoln, NMSDA president, wrote to the homeschool group in an email.

The Jemez Mountain Home School Speech and Debate Team has participated in public school debate events for nearly two decades, but an arbitrary change to the bylaws last fall cut home school students out of all academic contests, including chess, debate and science competitions that had been open to all students for years.

The Los Alamos Daily Post published an article from JMHS SDT News that contends the decision was made unilaterally with no prior warning or public discussion. And while JMHS SDT students are forced to the sidelines, the NMAA is granting special permission for other groups to participate despite the new rules.

“The New Mexico Speech and Debate Association Congressional Debate Championship got underway Saturday morning at Desert Academy in Santa Fe, but … After nearly two decades of continuous team participation in New Mexico invitational and state championship tournaments, the Jemez Mountain Home School Speech and Debate Team has been excluded from competition,” according to the news site.

“Meanwhile, a New Mexico regional Science Olympiad competition is also in full swing Saturday at UNM. For unknown reasons, the NMAA has granted a special exception to home school Science Olympiad teams, yet the NMAA continues to deny any and all access to the Jemez Mountain Speech and Debate Team and will not even discuss it.”

In other words, the ban against homeschoolers isn’t up for debate.

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The situation is enraging home school parents, who like all other citizens pay taxes to support public schools, are shut out of events that are often open to out-of-state teams. They’re also pointing out the irony of curbing the free speech rights of students the debate competitions are designed to promote.

“ … (T)he students, their families, and their communities find particular irony in the fact that they, as speech and debate students, have been excluded from Saturdays congressional debate event. Speech, they note, is a first amendment right, and the NMAA is actively curtailing that right in an event that is specifically designed to emulate our democratic process,” the Daily Post reports.

“Prior to the beginning of each Congressional Debate event, students take an oath promising to uphold the Constitution, and yet the NMAA and its subsidiary organization, the NMSDA, is actively denying home school students the ability to speak and participate in a free exchange of ideas centered upon timely issues in our nation based solely on their choice of education modality.”

The special treatment for the JMHS SDT team is also peculiar considering that its coach, Carolyn Connor, won the 2014 NMSDA Speech Coach of the Year award in 2014. Since the group’s inception almost 20 years ago, it has produced “several NSDA National All-American (list of the top 150 students nationally) and Academic All-American alumni and has qualified 17 students to the NSDA National Tournament in a broad range of events including Congressional Debate, Lincoln Douglas Debate, Public Forum Debate, Original Oratory, Extemporaneous Speaking (both Domestic and International), Humorous Interpretation, and Dramatic Interpretation,” according to the site.

“We believe that inclusion is a better choice and makes a better world. In the 21st century equal-access should be a shared value in New Mexico, not a topic of controversy. We will continue to pursue every avenue open to us to re-establish full and open home school student participation in New Mexico academic activities,” Connor said.

“More teams means more learning, more critical thinking, more diversity, and stronger and healthier activities for all,” she added.

The JMHS SDT is now appealing to the New Mexico Public Education Department in hopes of participating in the NMSDA State Speech and Debate Tournament in Las Cruces later this month.

It’s not the first time the JMHS SDT has had to fight for its right to debate.

The Albuquerque Journal in 2004 covered similar attempts in the past to exclude home school students from state debate competitions. The Home School Legal Defense Association helped the JMHS SDT overcome exclusion in that incident.