Freelance journalists are journalists who, rather than working as a salaried employee for a specific company, are self-employed and work on a per-contract basis (eg. for a particular story, investigation) and by independently pitching and selling work to mainstream organizations. In recent years the percentage of journalists working as freelancers in the mainstream media has increased, with over 1/3rd of journalists in the US working as freelancers.

For the purposes of this debate “mainstream media” refers to large, news organizations with large teams, name recognition, and established credibility (the New York Times, BBC, CBC, etc.)

Integrating patriotism into feminist advocacy includes displaying national flags and symbols in messaging and celebrating female soldiers while avoiding supporting independence movements and publicly criticizing nationalism.

In May 2026, the US Justice Department began investigating whether Yale’s undergraduate, law and medical admissions discriminate against white and Asian applicants, in breach of the Supreme Court’s 2023 ban on race-conscious admissions. It has since concluded, partly from gaps in median test scores and grades, that the medical school favoured Black and Hispanic applicants. Faculty groups argue the evidence is statistically weak. The administration has threatened to cut federal funding to universities found in violation.

Recent settlements by other universities have included:

- Payments of $50m–$200m (Columbia, Brown, Northwestern)
- No payment, but new admissions rules, a compliance officer and quarterly reports to the government until 2028 (UNC)
- Ending DEI programmes and reporting admissions data to the government (University of Virginia)

Harvard instead fought the administration in court and won back research funding, but the government’s appeal is pending.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is the largest mental health advocacy group in North America. In 2017 there was an internal debate over whether the organization should take a small-tent (focusing only on mental illness that are severely debilitating, e.g schizophrenia, severe depression, level 3 autism) or a big-tent (advocating for mental illness issues more generally, and broadening advocacy to include a broader range of conditions regardless of severity, e.g. ADHD, level 1 autism, etc.)

From 13 October, Starlink service over Ukraine was throttled. For the sake of the debate, Trump has communicated with top Ukrainian leaders that access will only be restored if Ukraine stops hitting Russian refineries.

For the purposes of this debate, only effects that have manifested up until today, October 25th, 2026, are to be considered. This excludes any future harms or benefits. 

“Vigilante content” refers to a genre of media and online content in which creators attempt to find and expose individuals engaged in illegal or immoral sexual behaviour (eg. catching child predators, infidelity), often via self led sting operations and entrapment.