National Youth Rights Association

In our nation’s capital, youth rights activists came from as far away as Long Island to speak out for a lower voting age and an end to voter ID laws.

“America was founded on the idea that those who must obey the laws are entitled to a say in what the laws are,” declared NYRA Executive Director Bill Bystricky. “That’s what Thomas Jefferson meant by ‘consent of the governed.’ While no nation has ever been perfect in honoring that democratic ideal, America has a proud history of always moving closer to that goal, enfranchising new groups of Americans and expanding democracy. Today we are here to help move America another step forward.”

The rally has now ended, but the fight for voting rights marches on, and you can still be part of it. How? By organizing a local rally in your area and by sending a donation to help us make such events possible.

To organize a local Votes for Youth rally, just choose a day, find a few volunteers willing to help, publicize the date and time, and alert the media with some news releases. Send an email about it to NYRA’s Executive Director, and he will personally publicize it to NYRA-members in your area.

To send a contribution, go here.

Join the forum discussion on this post

NYRA will join with The American Civil Liberties Union of the Nation’s Capital and other youth rights activists for a Washington, DC rally to demand a lower voting age and an end to voter ID laws. We hope everyone will show their support, and there are several ways you can help.

First and foremost, come out to Washington and attend our rally!

When:
Friday, October 12, 2012 at 4PM

Where:
1 Judiciary Square, 441 4th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001

Can’t make it in person? Here are some other ways you can help us promote Votes for Youth:

1. Post below your best argument for lowering the voting age. If you have an especially good one, maybe we’ll read it at the rally.
2. Send your local newspaper a letter to the editor calling for a lower voting age. Let people see that Votes for Youth is a popular idea, and help us build momentum.
3. Organize a local Votes for Youth rally. Choose a day between now and Election Day, find a few volunteers willing to help, publicize the date and time, and alert the media with some news releases. Send an email about it to NYRA’s Executive Director, and he will personally publicize it to NYRA-members in your area.
4. Donate money to NYRA. Better funding means more impact. With NYRA’s small staff, organizing a rally takes time away from fundraising, and without funding, an organization cannot survive. So help us make these activities possible by donating what you can.
5. Get your friends to donate money to NYRA.

With your help, America will hear a loud and clear call for votes for youth.

Join the forum discussion on this post

NYRA-members still have time to vote in this year’s Board of Directors election. The candidates this year include some of the most heralded heroes and heroines in NYRA history – front line organizers, successful fundraisers, outstanding volunteers, and two former NYRA presidents as well as the current one – along with some exciting up-and-comers.

The online-voting period has already started, and will run until Saturday Aug. 4th at 3PM Eastern Time. All current, dues-paying NYRA members are eligible to vote. (If you are eligible to vote but did not get your ballot info emailed to you, contact [email protected] )

Learn about the candidates and the issues on our NYRA election page.

Join the forum discussion on this post

The most basic right people of any age have is the right to physical safety, the right not to be harmed or touched against your will. Yet there are public schools in America where students are routinely hit by the very authority figures entrusted to keep them safe. Even in 2012, corporal punishment is still legal in several states.

If a warden used corporal punishment on an adult convicted of rape or murder, that would be illegal. Our Constitution forbids such cruel and unusual punishment. But when a teacher does the same thing to a defenseless child guilty of chewing gum, our government allows it.

This needs to end.

Representative Carolyn McCarthy has introduced HR 3027 (the Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act) to finally protect students in every state. But this bill cannot pass without widespread support.

That’s why, June 20-22, NYRA will join The Hitting Stops Here and other youth rights allies in a Washington, DC rally to demand passage of HR 3027. And you can help.

How You Can Help

1. Come to Washington, DC and join our events. The more people who show up, the more attention we draw.
2. If you can’t make it, but still want to be part of the action, give us a message we can read at the rally. Tell us your story.
3. Write, email, or phone your Representative in Congress and ask her to support HR 3027. Let Congress see that people care about this issue.
4. Donate money. Fighting in the political arena requires resources, and every dollar makes us stronger.

Rally details here.

The Montgomery County Council voted 6-3 to table a proposed curfew law that would have allowed police to arrest anyone younger than 18 for being in public after 11PM. This vote to table the proposal effectively kills it, though it leaves open the possibility that the Council could consider it once again in the future.

The Montgomery County Council debated the curfew bill for months. In the early stages, it looked like this anti-youth measure would pass. Similar laws have passed in nearby districts, and several members of the Council expressed support.

But over the months, youth rights activists spoke up. In July, NYRA Executive Director Alex Koroknay-Palicz and other activists addressed the Council at a public hearing. In late November, as this proposal went into the final stretch, NYRA-members emailed those on the Council.

After hearing the arguments, the Council came to understand that age-based curfews are a bad idea, and that the public is far from unanimous in supporting them.

Council President Roger Berliner, explaining his support for tabling the bill, said a proposal of this nature should only be implemented when there is a consensus in the community. During today’s meeting, he said it was now clear no such consensus exists.

Councilman George Leventhal, explaining his own vote to table the bill, reminded his peers that their job was to serve the community and, “Young people are part of our community.”

A more moderate proposal, that would have empowered police to arrest people of any age for loitering was also tabled by a vote of 5-4.

More: http://colesville.patch.com/articles/montgomery-county-youth-curfew-falls-flat

Last week NYRA hired long time NYRA member Bill Bystricky to take on the position of Campaign Director. With the departure of Dave Moss last month, NYRA’s Executive Director Alex Koroknay-Palicz postponed his retirement from NYRA in order to rebuild the staff and ensure a successful, active year for the organization. Bystricky has extensive experience working as Media Outreach & Grants Manager for the Boys & Girls Club of Silicon Valley, as a teacher, and as an organizer for PETA and Planned Parenthood. He has also written extensively on youth rights and has a solid understanding of the issues NYRA advocates for.

“Bill combines a solid background in political organizing, youth organizing and a passion for youth rights,” said Alex Koroknay-Palicz, “he is a great fit for NYRA and will be a true asset to this organization moving forward.”

Bystricky will work to build NYRA’s grassroots base inside and outside of chapters, coordinate activity with NYRA’s coalition partners, assist with media relations, develop additional research for the website and manage programs & projects to advance youth rights.

Bystricky, a native of San Jose, CA, moved cross country to take the position, and began work on November 14.

“NYRA is at the forefront of the most important social movement we have in America right now. I believe in this movement and I believe in this organization.” said Bill Bystricky, “This is the only cause for which I’d drive cross country and leave the west coast behind. NYRA is ready to grow and I’m here to do my part.”

NYRA is pleased to release this year’s Annual Report. The report covers all of last year’s campaigns and projects as well as an operations update and a financial report. This was a very active year for the organization and there is no better place to read up on all NYRA has accomplished for youth rights. This year we made a great deal of progress in the areas of free speech, the voting age, student rights, youth privacy, age discrimination in business, behavior modification and opposition to curfew laws. NYRA also saw a 40% increase in donations this year, made great progress toward our new website, and organized two fantastic annual meetings.

2010-2011 was our best year yet, and this is our most comprehensive and best looking annual report ever. Please download this report and distribute it widely.

The brief but controversial life of the proposed SonicScreen in Hastings, MN has ended. The SonicScreen is how the Mosquito device that NYRA defeated last fall in Washington, DC is currently being marketed to real estate developers, park commissions, shop owners, school boards and other decision makers around the country. The Park Commission of Hastings, MN rarely engages in anything controversial. Mostly they make minor repairs to the various parks around their community. At one park in particular, however, there has been an increase in the amount of vandalism. City officials were quick to blame teenagers even though they have absolutely no idea who is perpetrating the vandalism. Hoping to put the community at ease they announced they were considering installing a SonicScreen – a device that emits a high pitched sound at 17.4 mhz and over 100 decibels. The only people who can hear such a sound are under the age of 25. NYRA, having experience with this issue, sent a letter to the City Council and Parks Commission of Hastings and cc’d local Minnesota press, igniting a flurry of stories about the proposed device. After a couple of meetings, most likely worried about potential legal challenges and charges of discrimination, the commission decided the SonicScreen was “overkill” and they followed NYRA’s suggestion of installing motion-activated flood lights instead.

Young people are often censored and when they are NYRA is there to defend their right to free speech. The first amendment does not enforce itself and it’s of critical importance that there exist organizations willing to fight for the right to speak. NYRA is pleased this month to announce that we have joined the National Coalition Against Censorship. NCAC offers direct assistance and counseling to anyone confronted with censorship and serves as a clearinghouse of information. The coalition unites over 50 organizations dedicated to promoting free expression.

The American Library Association (ALA) assembled a panel to discuss Youth, Privacy and Freedom at this year’s Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference in Washington, DC. NYRA was pleased to participate in the very successful ALA conference on Youth & Privacy in Chicago this March, and was honored to be invited to speak on this panel. Like the conference in Chicago, most of the focus of other panelists was on the dangers of young people sharing information online. While recognizing the challenges this new era of social networking creates, NYRA’s Executive Director respectfully disagreed that Facebook was the greatest threat to the privacy of teens. He pointed out the many invasive ways in which schools, the government and parents regularly invade the privacy of youth. While unfortunately cut short, the presentation was well received and will likely lead to greater collaboration between NYRA and other privacy
advocates. Check out Koroknay-Palicz’s full presentation here.

NYRA has written a Memorandum of Support for a bill introduced in the New York Assembly & Senate that would allow New York City to appoint 16 and 17-year-olds to local community boards. These community boards have an important advisory role in dealing with land use and zoning matters, the City budget, municipal service delivery, and many other matters relating to their communities’ welfare. This is an important step to providing young people a true voice in their government and community.

This bill, introduced by Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh and State Senator Andrew Lanza, is the newest chapter in a campaign NYRA has been involved in since 2005. At that time Future Voters of America (FVA) and New York City Councilwoman Gale Brewer introduced a bill to lower the voting age to 16 in New York City. The effort brought a great deal of attention to the issue but ultimately did not pass. Groups supporting that effort, such as FVA, NYRA and the Police Athletic League then worked on a campaign to allow young people on community boards in the city. The bill nearly passed last year, and all involved feel we have a good opportunity to pass it now. Read NYRA’s Memorandum of Support here.

Politicians often think of young people as recipients of services rather than actors in the process. This type of thinking can lead them to make some offensive comments. These comments are borne out of genuine prejudice against young people and the knowledge that no one will stand up to defend them. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Presidential Candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich were probably counting on that a few weeks ago when they made derogatory and public remarks about young people.

During a Senate hearing and acting as Chairman, Senator Rockefeller recently stated that “it’s my general feeling that people who are 20, 21, 22 years old really don’t have any social values.” Mr. Gingrich, speaking on the campaign trail suggested that young people should be required to take a test before they’re allowed to vote.

NYRA assembled a coalition of organizations representing young people that included Youth Service America, the United States Student Association, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the Freechild Project, the U.S. Youth Chamber of Commerce and the Youth Activism Project. We sent the following letter to Senator Rockefeller and Mr. Gingrich and cc’d a variety of Democratic and Republican campaign committees as well as members of the press. Here is the text of the letter.

On May 1-3 leaders from around the world gathered in Washington, DC to mark World Press Freedom Day, a United Nations organized event promoting freedom of the press. This is the first year the event has been held in the United States. As host, this was a great opportunity for our country to promote the cherished American value of press freedom to other countries around the world. Yet, cherished as this value is, the United States is in no position to lecture the rest of the world. Journalists are routinely censored, punished and silenced here in this country – student journalists.

To point out this fact, NYRA signed on to a letter written by the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) pointing out the lack of press freedoms for students in this country. A total of 40 organizations took out a full page ad in the Washington Post with an open letter to President Obama on student press freedoms. The letter forcefully pointed out the hypocrisy of lecturing the world about press freedom while doing nothing to protect the freedom of student journalists here at home.

The letter has already had an impact. SPLC made sure that Eric Newton from the Knight Foundation, one of the sponsors of the event, saw the letter. During the event, Newton called out the US for violating the rights of students.

NYRA-NYU experienced a great increase in activity over the past few months and has held three successful events as well as being approved as a full NYU club for the 2011-2012 academic year. For National Youth Rights Day, the chapter held an event on campus titled “Activism 101″, which taught a group of interested students some basic tactics and strategies to keep in mind when getting started in grassroots or nonprofit work.

At the end of April, NYRA-NYU joined with the Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth to hold an awareness event about the troubled teen industry called “American Gulag”. They screened the documentary “Tranquility Bay” and invited NYRA member and CAFETY board member Siobhan Lynch to speak on the structure of the industry and on her experiences in an abusive facility. The highly-publicized event caused shockwaves in the NYU activist community and attracted the attention of many other groups, including the ACLU, NYU College Libertarians, and Law Students for Human Rights.

Last weekend, NYRA board member and NYRA-NYU president Usiel Phoenix spoke to the Queens County Libertarian Party about the youth rights movement. Her speech was very well received, which will go far in helping the chapter to establish local political connections.

A bill to lower the voting age has recently been introduced in Washington State by Sen. Scott White, thanks to our newest chapter NYRA-Seattle. Senate Bill 5621 has created the possibility of a lower voting age in Washington, allowing 14 year olds to vote for school board members. Although the odds of the bill actually passing are not very high, the chapter says it’s goal was to start the conversation in Washington and bring attention to the issue. Chapter leader Jesse Seidman believes that because school board decisions have the most influence on the students in the schools, the students have the right to vote for the board members. Although the bill faces much opposition, the bill is shining a spotlight on the voting age issue and sparking conversation and debate about it. And if it passes, it will make Washington the first state to grant voting rights in general elections to people under 18.

Two years ago NYRA joined its first amicus brief, in the case of Safford v. Redding, in which a middle school student was strip searched because school officials suspected she had Ibuprofen. We were proud to help Savana Redding win her case at the US Supreme Court. Last summer NYRA joined an amicus brief in the US Supreme Court case of Schwarzenegger v. EMA, at issue is whether California may ban violent video games for individuals under 18. No decision in that case yet, but we aren’t going to sit back and wait, we’re moving forward with two more cases this year.

The first case, once again at the US Supreme Court, is Camreta v. Greene, which involves a 9-year-old girl who was forcibly detained for two hours in school as she was interrogated by the police. There was no warrant, her parents weren’t notified and she wasn’t herself under suspicion of any wrongdoing (her father was), yet she was not free to go. This would not have been permitted were she not in school, and the state is arguing that students give up their rights when they go to school. NYRA disagrees and has joined this case.

The second case, this time at the 11th Circuit Court, called Barnes v. Zaccari, involves a student at Valdosta State University who was expelled from school for protesting the construction of a new parking garage. We are joining the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and other groups who believe that free speech should be protected in college and there should be consequences for violating the rights of students. In both cases, NYRA was invited to join the briefs. Our reputation is rising and we are being seen as an important partner for defending the rights of youth. We will keep everyone informed of progress in these cases.

Recently, councilmembers in San Juan Capistrano, California considered proposals to enhance their existing curfew laws. Amongst the new ideas considered were a daytime curfew during school hours and increased fines for the parents of young people who dare to go outside. Realizing that council members weren’t completely sold on the idea and that they clearly hadn’t seen NYRA’s comprehensive research on the subject we decided to act. The National Office led outreach efforts to the Mayor Sam Allevato and other council members letting them know about our position on curfews and reminding them that they don’t work. Dave Moss covered the upcoming decision for Change.org and newly formed NYRA-Los Angeles plans to get involved at the ground level. Hopefully we can help guide the San Juan Capistrano City Council to make the sensible decision. Check out the piece on Change.org and sign the petition, or, better yet, contact the council yourself here.

For a decade, the NYRA Freedom has been hitting email inboxes around the country. We’ve covered every youth rights issue imaginable and now we’d like your help to cover even more and to reach more folks. Are you a a NYRA member with a gift for writing and a passion for our advocacy work? Then we’d love to have your help putting together articles for our monthly newsletter. Very soon, we will be unveiling a new website and improving our online outreach systems. We want to match that with improved content. If you’re interested in helping out – please email Dave Moss and join our staff!

NYRA is looking for some spring interns! Are you in the DC area and want to have an internship that matters? Want to work in support of issues you care about? Work for NYRA! We are looking for interns to help us advance the cause of youth in our Washington, DC office. Internships are unpaid, but school credit and service hours are provided. Working in the NYRA office is a valuable experience for anyone interested in getting into the field of non-profit advocacy or those seeking to make a career out of fighting for youth rights. Hours are flexible and we are happy to build an internship around your unique interests and skills. Read more details on the position here. If you’re looking for an opportunity to work as an intern this semester, and are interested in helping NYRA make progress for youth rights, e-mail us for more information.

Mark your calendars now; NYRA’s 2011 annual meeting will take place in the nation’s capital, Washington D.C., on August 6th and 7th of 2011. The annual meeting, held every year since 1998, is host to a congregation of dedicated NYRA members and activists from around the country for a weekend of presentations and discussions about various topics related to organizational growth and youth rights ideology, and even some pretty good barbecuing. This weekend is also the culmination of the annual election of the NYRA Board of Directors, with meeting attendees the first to hear the results. We hope that our early announcement can help minimize travel fares for those interested in coming, and temporary residence is typically available for those who need it in the homes of local NYRA members. Be on the lookout for more information in the coming months.