Sierra Edmisten and the debate class during an advocacy meeting. Photo taken by Tom Tran.
On April 21, Hastings High’s Communication Arts and Debate Teacher Delta Fajardo hosted the second session of her ‘advocacy series’ — a project she started in order to educate students about collaborative, safe, and professional self-advocacy processes following the Grand Island Senior High walk-out earlier this February.
During school, students from Debate classes and later David Johnson’s American Government classes gathered to meet Sierra Edmisten, a senior member of the Nebraska Civic Engagement Table. Fajardo invited Edmisten to teach about various avenues students can take to self-advocate on a state legislative scale: attending committee hearings, pulling senators off the floor, contacting representatives, organizing public campaigns, and ballot initiatives.
“Sierra Edmisten, I contacted because I know that she’s involved in a lot of things and that she has been involved with initiatives from beginning to end… like boots on ground field work,” Fajardo said. “I was like, ‘That is the perfect person.’”
Fajardo aims to invite guest speakers from several backgrounds, hoping to teach students self-advocacy can begin not only in intimidating environments, but anywhere.
“A lot of people think that advocacy happens on the hill… It’s at the Capitol. It’s in those meetings. It’s in those hearings,” Fajardo said. “You don’t necessarily think of trying to do changes in places like a university. But, it can happen in something as small as that. I don’t want kids to not think about where they can make change, even if it’s not as grand a scale as they would like to have it on. Slow, it’s always slow.”
Currently, Fajardo is working towards having her acquaintance, Dr. Lawrence Chatters, speak at a future meeting. As a Senior Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and Capacity at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, with a background in psychology therapy and mental wellness and as a participant in UNL advocacy programs, he will share his experiences advocating at a university level.
“He has such a unique perspective on [advocacy],” Fajardo said. “He also wants to see change, but he would like to have things done in a healthy way. He wants to see positive environments… and he approaches it very heavily on mindset changes… [and] I think he loves the objective side of it.”
Mindset changes and objectivity have been the foundation of Fajardo’s series, as she started the project after receiving multiple hateful comments online, following the Grand Island Senior High (GISH) ICE walk-out in February.
“I had some people call me a coward… that I needed to get the students and try to get them to protest… and [that] I need to be at the head of the line,” Fajardo said. “All of it… I was really upset by it. I was actually crying… and it was those continuous kinds of feelings that made me suddenly realize… ‘I don’t think you all understand how this really works.’”
As a debate coach, Fajardo believes advocacy is more than crowding for streetside protests and walk-outs. Rather, she said it is seeking structured solutions, collaborating with organizations, and undergoing the necessary processes to make lasting change.
“Anytime anybody protests, I would like to go up to them and say, ‘What are you trying to solve here?’ Literally solve,” Fajardo said. “If you [aren’t]… trying to make a solution happen, then this protest is just freedom of speech, and that’s fine… But, what else can we do?”
Furthermore, Fajardo said informal gatherings such as the GISH walk-out fuel hostile environments, which may endanger the safety of both the protestors and their opponents. She also thinks it can harm the cause they are advocating for.
“Rather than the message they were trying to give, instead it turned into violence and ‘teenagers being teenagers’ and ‘Why did the school let you out? Why are we spending tax money for kids to go walk out?’” Fajardo said.
Fajardo claimed hate comments and online rants are no different, especially when they incite her or her students to enter into streetside protests.
“I can sympathize with somebody who would like to see change, whatever change that may be,” Fajardo said. “But, I will not be sympathetic towards anyone who wants to use any method towards violence.”
As a debate coach, one of Fajardo’s responsibilities is to teach students how to be persuasive while maintaining objectivity — clearheadedness that prevents peaceful protests from collapsing into violence.
“I feel like the debaters might tell you that I do a pretty good job of… getting them to think one way, and then I’ll go make them think the other way,” Fajardo said. “They’re like, ‘You don’t help us at all! We want a side.’ And, I’m like, ‘I’m giving you both. Pick one when you’re done, or stay right smack dab in the middle and educate people, just like me.’”
For Fajardo, that includes keeping her own bias out of the conversation, whether or not she agrees with her students’ stances.
“I think that if I were to actually give my own opinion, then suddenly I have a certain kind of power,” Fajardo said. “I don’t want to make it sound like I’m all so powerful, but I have the ability to persuade minds…”
However, Fajardo wants to teach more than debate skills. Through her advocacy series, she wants students to learn about different safe places they can put those skills to use.
“Now, more than ever, I think it’s important to find the right venues, the right arenas, the right places where they can actively get involved with changing things…” Fajardo said. “I think what they really want is to be in places where the bills get signed… not just a person on the side of the street with a sign.”
The safety of her students has always been a concern, but has grown since the assassinaton of political activist Charlie Kirk in September 2025.
“Here I am teaching my students how to debate: how to promote the ideas that they are on, advocate for themselves and for the beliefs that they have, and get into the political arena,” Fajardo said. “Am I teaching them to get hurt? Are they going to be the ones who someday are up on a podium and something is going to take a shot at them? And, that freaked me out.”
In order to remain compliant with state standards regarding class time usage, Fajardo has only held presentations during her debate classes and Johnson’s American Government classes. She is looking for other presentation times and speakers, but other duties such as prom coordination and classes have made it difficult.
“I’m still on the lookout for who else I can put in. I just don’t know if I will be able to fully realize what this could be before the end of this year,” Fajardo said.
So far, some students advise the presentations could be more engaging: mock trials or unbiased discussion about related real-world issues. Debaters also note the information presented would be more beneficial for people outside of the debate community.
“Debate already does a pretty good job itself because we are forced to advocate for ourselves,” Schroeder said. “I feel like it needs to be open to more people… anyone that’s not good at self-advocacy, that doesn’t like to actually talk about these things, or feels like it doesn’t matter.”
However, Fajardo’s students have been supportive of her series and goals overall.
“We need more people to actually care about advocating for themselves and for others in general,” Schroeder said. “To know how to advocate for yourself is really important, whether it’s on a broad scale, like nationally, or even at your job, if you have an unfair boss.”
Going forward, Fajardo would like to reach out to city council members and has hopes of pulling in speakers from national debate conventions.
“The best dream in the world would be to that point, where I am able to get groups that are nationally recognized here and talk about that,” Fajardo said. “Because, again, I feel like students don’t understand that they can make that kind of difference.”
At the moment, Fajardo’s advocacy series may be small, but her aspirations are not.
“Me, I’m just a little ripple,” Fajardo said. “What could happen if I do this series and then some people actually become a part of these organizations? … What if they become part of something much, much bigger? So, am I done with this series? Absolutely not. Do I wish I could make it bigger? Absolutely.”
