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Veritas (Veritas School of Social Sciences, Inc.) is an educational institution that provides a fleet of equitable programs that create economic mobility and level the playing field for Black and brown youth by providing access to academic and professional skills training that will place them on a pathway to elite colleges and high-earning careers. Veritas uses educational equity to close the academic opportunity and economic inequality gaps for Black and brown families.
Veritas Debate Institute is our introductory training program. VDI is a weekly Saturday school for students in grades 8-11. Veritas scholars receive college-level training in Atlanta for 11 months, which concludes with a summer residential program at Harvard College where they study alongside and compete against hundreds of elite debaters worldwide in Harvard Debate Council’s international competition. For five consecutive years, Veritas scholars have won this competition.
This is continued learning for students who have matriculated through VDI. During this summer program, our scholars visit a different corporation across a variety of industries each day. They get to learn from senior-level executives about the most pressing problems in the corporate world. Our scholars engage in exercises and simulations that allow them to experiment with finding real solutions to these problems by applying the critical thinking and communication skills learned in the Veritas classroom.
This is continued learning for students who have matriculated through VDI. The world becomes our classroom as we journey to different countries learning empathetic leadership skills through cultural immersion experiences. Each year, we facilitate journeys to places like Israel, Egypt, Italy, Spain, Africa, the UK and many more in order to develop global-minded leaders.
This is continued learning for students who have matriculated through VDI. We use career readiness programming to equip our college students with professional skills that will help build their resumes and teach them how to navigate the corporate world and access the resources they need to create impact and lead high quality lives.
Schools throughout the nation seek to learn from our educational equity model. Each month, we partner with school districts to provide professional development programming for K-12 educators who visit our campus to see and learn from our innovative strategies.. We equip them with tools to take our methods back to their schools and implement our strategies that have proven to increase student engagement and performance.
We teach equity
We do not learn for the sake of knowing. We learn for the sake of doing. We learn how to use our gifts to repair the world.
Too often, Black and brown youth are not given access to high-quality educational opportunities that will make them competitive for college admissions and the workforce. This opportunity gap creates an achievement gap that swells into the racial wealth gap that we see in America. We are closing that gap and creating generational wealth by positioning Black and brown youth to become high earners and contributors.
Class of 2018
Class of 2019
Class of 2020
Class of 2021
Class of 2022
Class of 2023
Over 150 Atlanta Students + Ivy League & Elite Education =
Collective Earning Potential of 10,000,000/yr. in 25 years…
Veritas was founded in 2017 by Brandon P. Fleming, an award-winning author, educator, and former Harvard debate coach, as a campus program called Harvard Debate Council Diversity Project. During his tenure at Harvard as assistant debate coach, Fleming identified the need for more representation of Black and brown students in Harvard’s summer residential debate program, understanding how such prestigious academic opportunities impact students’ chances to earn acceptance into elite colleges and universities. With Harvard’s support, Fleming founded the Harvard Debate Council Diversity Project to create access for Black youth from Atlanta to study and compete in Harvard’s annual summer residential debate program.
The Harvard Debate Council Diversity Project was designed as a weekly Saturday school to equip Atlanta youth with higher-level academic training to prepare them to compete on an international stage at Harvard’s summer residential debate program. Since 2017, all five cohorts of the Harvard Debate Council Diversity Project’s students have won the Harvard Debate Council’s international academic debate competition for five consecutive years – outperforming hundreds of gifted youth from over 25 countries around the world. As a result, Harvard Diversity Project alumni have been accepted into top colleges and universities around the world.
Through his work, Fleming has shown that with determination, resilience, and a passion for learning, anyone can overcome adversity and achieve their dreams. The program’s proven success led to a rapid increase in demand, creating a need for growth and scale. Fleming scaled the Harvard Debate Council Diversity Project into the Veritas School of Social Sciences in order to expand the organization’s services to include more programming and allow more youth and educators to access the life-changing educational model.
Veritas is currently in Phase One of a 10-year plan to scale into an international boarding school for people of color. Phase One is the current weekly Saturday school model, and Veritas will launch as a day school in Phase Two.
The program’s unparalleled success and growing demand created a need for scale. To give more youth and educators around the world access to HDCDP’s life-changing educational model, Fleming decided to scale HDCDP into The Veritas School of Social Sciences, which will be one of the first secondary boarding schools in the world for multicultural people of color. Veritas is scaling in three phases:
Veritas will launch its day school component for students in Metro Atlanta (projected Fall 2024).
Veritas will launch its international boarding component (project Fall 2028).
