Stanford University hosts numerous influential and controversial speakers on a regular basis. The campus fosters a climate of spirited discussion and debate. But what the University lacks is a united venue to facilitate such discourse. This editorial board believes that Stanford would greatly benefit from a centralized, debate society, similar to the Oxford Union, where speakers and students could gather to debate pressing issues of the day.

While the University already boasts the talented and active Stanford Debate Society, the proposed organization would function quite differently from the current institution, which is primarily concerned with intercollegiate competition. Instead of promoting intercollegiate debate, Stanford’s new society would provide a “chamber debate” aspect, a centralized forum for the same speakers who are already invited to campus.

The Oxford Union, founded in 1823, considers itself “the world’s most prestigious debating society,” and has been called the “last bastion of free speech in the Western world” by former British Prime Minister and one-time Oxford Union President Harold Macmillan. Notable speakers include peace activists, politicians of diametrically opposed philosophies, athletes and pop stars. Its members are a “Who’s Who” of British and international politics; the late Benazir Bhutto was Union President in 1977.

Beyond the impressive array of speakers, the Union distinguishes itself through its commitment to free speech and debates of controversial ideas. It boasts of being on “the cutting edge of controversy;” recently extended invitations to convicted Holocaust denier David Irving and racist British National Party leader Nick Griffin sparked fierce protests and demonstrations. Among the thousands of motions the Union has debated was the controversial “This House regrets the founding of America” — a May 2007 motion that was ultimately voted down.

The tremendous impact of a venue such as the Oxford Union cannot be understated. Some argue that the Union’s famous 1933 motion, “This House will under no circumstances fight for King and Country,” encouraged Hitler to invade Europe. The overwhelming motion that, “This House would say ‘Yes’ to Europe” is considered to have influenced the vote for the U.K. to join the European Economic Community in 1975. The firestorm of debate surrounding the recent Irving and Griffin invitations was covered extensively in the BBC, Times of London and other mainstream media sources. Coverage of “electoral malpractice, abuse of power and sexual harassment” in the Union’s latest presidential election — an election contested between undergraduate college students — rivaled CNN’s reporting on Hillary-Obama catfights.

This editorial is not merely an ode to Oxford’s institutions, but rather a call for a similar association on our own campus. Stanford already hosts many influential and controversial speakers, such as climate change skeptic Siegfried Fred Singer and Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi. The presence of both speakers on campus sparked heated controversy, and the Ashrawi visit even led to a “die-in” at the Intersection of Death.

And of course, there’s the ongoing controversy over former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s appointment to the Hoover Institution as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow. In addition to ASSU bills and student rallies in White Plaza, the Stanford Debate Team addressed this maelstrom by hosting a debate in which the resolution, “Donald Rumsfeld’s appointment to Hoover is good for Stanford” was argued by team members, with time allotted for the hundred-member crowd to offer its own input. Efforts like these to provide outlets for discourse are commendable and serve to show that the interest for spirited debate exists at Stanford.

All we lack is unification. Currently, these speakers are often sponsored by myriad campus offices and organizations, and require opposing groups to coordinate their own counter-programming. The Ashrawi talk alone was sponsored by Students Confronting Apartheid by Israel, the Coalition for Justice in the Middle East, Amnesty International, Six Degrees, the Muslim Student Awareness Network, the Jewish Committee on Human Rights, the Department of Anthropology, the NAACP, the Stanford Theatre Activist Mobilization Project and the ASSU Speakers Bureau.

The ASSU Speakers Bureau is the closest Stanford has to a centralized entity for coordinating speakers, but it remains more of a source for funding and dizzying co-sponsorship than a physical venue like the Oxford Union.

The want of a physical space dedicated to open discourse handicaps Stanford. Events are held in locations including Kresge and Memorial Auditoriums, the Hoover Institution and everywhere in between. Students lack a dependable place to go to hear important issues and are frequently unaware of on-campus speakers. Establishing a debate society with its own established chambers on campus would help simplify and focus campus discourse.

This editorial board believes Stanford would be enriched by a centralized forum for debate. Doing so would facilitate the already existent campus discourse and give our opinions and voices greater impact. The notion, as always, is debatable — so let’s have a place to argue it.