Hillsdale College forensics takes a classical view of what is widely viewed as a progressive discipline. Competing against state school powerhouses the forensics team competes well in spite, or perhaps because of, its traditional foundation.

The forensic speech is, according to Aristotle, one of three types of public discourse. The other two types being the epideictic, which deals with praising and blaming an act in order to build consensus about the present, and the deliberative, which centers on persuading an audience in relation to a future course of action. 

A forensic address is historically categorized as a legal argument, designed to persuade an audience concerning the justice or injustice of the past.

Modern day inter-collegiate forensics continues in the Aristotelian tradition of the legal speech. In lieu of ancient Greece's juries of hundreds are college instructors and coaches weighing the merits of each student's oral delivery from round to round of competition.

This history is not lost on Hillsdale College's forensics team, which is grounded in an Aristotelian view of rhetoric and competitive forensics.