The National Youth Rights Association has such an immense history of impacts it’s made on the country. At one point in time we had members testifying in front of legislatures, influencing supreme court decisions, appearing on news outlets regularly, and successfully leading campaigns to lower the voting age in states’ local elections. And then… things slowly started to fizzle out. NYRA had a period of being so much less active than it had been in the past, only occasionally posting on social media or publishing a blog.
But that era has ended, we are officially in a new age of NYRA, one where we will change the world, and put youth rights on the map for everyone to see. In this short blog, we’ll explain all of the recent updates to NYRA and how we are back better than ever.
You can read about each update here:
Leadership Changes
One of the biggest changes within NYRA recently is the leadership overhaul that the organization has experienced. NYRA has recently elected a new Board of Directors, who are all committed to upholding the organization’s vision and mission.
Zane “Xillion” Miller
Zane graduated high school with a College degree, having gone through a rigorous dual credit program, and now works as a professional writer for various lawyers. As a teenager, Zane was forced to be at the center of a brutal custody battle, which completely disregarded his rights due to him being young. This inspired Zane to be a Youth Rights advocate. With an urge to fight against an oppressive system, Zane often writes blogs and makes videos calling out the worst violations of youth rights. Zane is very passionate about letting people’s stories be heard by the world.
Zane joined NYRA in September 2025 and was elected to NYRA’s Board of directors in December 2025. He currently works as NYRA’s staffing team lead, stand-in research team lead, and works on the communications and website teams. He is the main host of NYRA’s Youth Rights Podcast, and has written several recent blogs for NYRA, including:
- Idaho Law Prevents Minors from Accessing the Suicide Hotline without parental consent,
- Why Phone Bans in Schools Threaten Student Safety and Violate Constitutional Rights,
- How Banks Discriminate against Youth – The Dangers of Parent Managed, “Teen” Bank Accounts,
- Vote NO on Texas Proposition 15 “Parental Rights” Amendment. Here’s how it would harm youth
- The Supreme Court Must Not Lift Conversion Therapy Bans.
Click here to read Zane Miller’s full profile.
Rimon-Hadassah Walker
Rimon-Hadassah, a proud alumnus of Simon’s Rock early college, is a Media Studies graduate student who keenly remembers how little their autonomy was respected when they were younger. Through their writing, they hope to reframe the general public’s assumptions about youth, education, bodily autonomy, and personhood.
Rimon joined NYRA in December 2024, and was elected to NYRA’s board of directors in June 2025. They currently work on the communications team and action team. Rimon is a great editor, and has edited several recent blogs for NYRA, including Idaho Law Prevents Minors from Accessing the Suicide Hotline without parental consent, Why Phone Bans in Schools Threaten Student Safety and Violate Constitutional Rights, and Powerschool vs Student Privacy. Rimon is also a member of NYRA’s new Chicago Node.
Click here to read Rimon-Hadassah Walker’s full profile.
Imogen Gannon
Imogen attended a Sudbury school known as The Clearwater School for 7 years, then transitioned to unschooling at age twelve. Thus she has been exposed to youth rights from a very young age. Though she has always believed in youth rights, more recent frustrations at the rise in ageism in communities she’s a part of motivated her to become a more vocal advocate for youth. She hopes for the mainstreaming of youth rights, and how that interacts with race/LGBTQ+/neurodiversity/class/etc.
Imogen joined NYRA in December 2024, and was elected to NYRA’s Board of Directors in June 2025. She currently works on the communications team and action team at NYRA, and often appears in episodes of the Youth RIghts podcast. She is a founding member of NYRA’s Seattle node, which often protests for youth rights, and holds local watch parties for youth rights related videos.
Click here to read Imogen Gannon’s full profile.
Susan Milton
Susan is the mom of two wonderful people who grew up without coercion or conventional schooling, and the founder of the Seattle version of Flying Squads, an international youth liberation collective. Her life has been greatly enriched by connecting with young people as equal human beings, and always remaining open to learning from them.
Susan joined NYRA in December 2024, and was elected to NYRA’s Board of Directors in June 2025. She currently works on the communications team and action team at NYRA, and often appears in episodes of the Youth RIghts podcast. She is a founding member of NYRA’s Seattle node, which often protests for youth rights, and holds local watch parties for youth rights related videos.
Click here to read Susan Milton’s full profile.
New Issues Sections
NYRA has recently published three new youth rights issue sections on the website – Parental Oppression, Juvenile Justice and Foster care.
Parental Oppression focuses on overly strict, controlling, manipulative, and harsh behaviors by parents that negatively affect the wellbeing of their children. Unfortunately, we live in a world where young people are routinely treated as less than, and seen as almost a “property” of their parents, empowering them with the ability to keep their children oppressed under the guise of “discipline”, while completely failing to recognize just how their conduct is damaging the wellbeing of their very own children. These behaviors from overbearing parental figures affect countless young people in their home lives. By calling out the worst of these controlling tactics from parents, NYRA hopes to draw attention to this issue, so people begin to recognize just how serious parental oppression can be, and just how straining its effects can be on young people.
Read more here about all of the types of Parental Oppression:
- Overbearing Expectations About a Child’s Future
- Overbearing Responsibilities that Hinder Development
- Emotional Abuse
- Corporal Punishment
- Manipulation and Gaslighting
- Hindering Education
- Preventing Work and Labor
- Limiting Financial Independence
- Preventing Interactions with Friends
- Restricting Romantic Relationships
- Theft of a Child’s Money
- Withholding Food as Punishment
- Violating Privacy
- Device Monitoring and Restricting
- Property Seizure
- Medical Neglect
- Denial of Mental Health Care
- Restriction of Self Expression
- Discrimination Against Identity
- Political indoctrination
- Sheltering from Ideas and Information
- Religious Indoctrination
The webpage also focuses on helping young people navigate their oppressive parental figures by giving them tips and strategies for how to deal with overly strict and controlling parents. You can read about all of these strategies here:
- Know Who to Trust
- Interacting Without Causing Problems
- Record Everything
- Backup Devices
- Navigating Device Searches, Restrictions and Monitoring
- Acquiring Financial Independence
The page was primarily authored by Zane Miller, with editing and research assistance from NYRA volunteers Catherine McCarthy and Kelsey Duskie.
Zane, a victim of parental oppression from a young age, wrote this section for the goal of hopefully starting a broader movement towards recognising and fighting against these normalized forms of abuse that parents exercise over their children on a daily basis.
You can read the full webpage here.
The Juvenile justice section covers a wide range of issues relating to youth in the justice system. It covers various questions such as what rights do juvenile offenders not have compared to adults? And what are the flaws and abuses of the juvenile justice system. Along with that, the section has several subpages, covering more specific issues.
- Status offenses – Learn about status offenses, crimes that you can only be charged with if you are a minor. These crimes are often extremely vague, and up to interpretation, leaving room for harsh responses by law enforcement. These often criminalize normal teenager behavior such as running away, disturbing school, or disobeying parents. The page also includes a state by state guide for every status offense in the state, as well as upper and lower age requirements to charge minors with status offenses.
- Emancipation – Learn about the emancipation process in each state, and the requirements that minors must show in order to get emancipated. Because the emancipation process is so difficult and often lacks a clear defined path, minors face major troubles in acquiring it. The page explains ways to improve the emancipation system to benefit youth in vulnerable situations.
- Due Process in the courts – Learn about specific court cases that challenged the lack of youth rights in the court system, and the outcome of those cases.
- Juvenile Access to Jury Trial by State – Juveniles do not have access to jury trials in most states. This page provides a state by state guide to which states allow unconditional jury trials for juveniles, conditional jury trials for juveniles, or never offer a jury trial for juveniles.
This section was primarily authored by Leah Matheson, Zane Miller, Nathan Lee and previous volunteers, with research and editing assistance from Catherine McCarthy and Ian Golec.
The Foster Care section explores youth rights in foster care. This explains the system of how a minor enters the foster care system, how CPS handles cases, and how minors leave the foster care system, either through adoption, aging out, or reunification with their parents. The page shows a state by state guide to the rights that youth have in foster care, either through a legal statute, or an unofficial departmental bill of rights. Along with that, the page explains the flaws and abuses within the foster care system, and how that relates to the rights that youth should have in the foster care system.
Along with this, NYRA members Zane Miller and Leah Matheson have completely rewritten various issue webpages on the website, to have more comprehensive information about the youth rights topics they cover. This includes:
These webpages had previously been publiushed from 2017 – 2020, but lacked detailed information. Now, they extensively cover the topic.
Finally, NYRA has also published a Student Privacy comprehensive webpage to our student rights section. The page was primarily authored by Leah Matheson, with major content contributions from Zane Miller. This page provides a detailed look into student privacy policies, its affect on students, and then delves deep into disturbing stories of student privacy violations by schools, including schools tracking girls’ menstrual cycles, punishing students for sexual identity and social media posts, and forcing kids to show inner details of their rooms. The page also extensively covers parental notification laws in each state, which force schools to inform parents of their children’s:
- Preferred names
- Gender identity
- Alternate pronouns
With all of these new webpages being published, NYRA is still far from slowing down. We have several pages on the way, including a comprehensive look at phone bans, freedom of movement, investments age and many more!
New Active Nodes
Along with changing leadership and publishing new content, NYRA has also been hard at work to establish local nodes. Here are the most recent nodes that are now active:
NYRA Seattle – NYRA Seattle was founded by Susan Milton, Imogen Gannon and Eric Kennedy. They often protest for Youth Rights in their local community, and create watch party events for Youth Rights related videos. The node was created with the goal of establishing a community of youth rights supporters in Seattle, and fighting ageist policies in local fan conventions. Most recently, they hosted a watch party for Devon Price’s video: Abolish age. You can read more about the Seattle node here.
If you would like to join them, you can email smilton@youthrights.org
NYRA Colorado – NYRA Colorado was founded by Rebecca Vigil, and currently includes a wide range of youth in the Thorntan, Colorado area. They have connections with local politicians, and have even been invited to the state capital. The Node was created with the goal of influencing policy, fighting ageism, and creating a community of youth rights supporters in Colorado. Recently, node members Rebecca Vigil and Rahman Arab interviewed Colorado State Representative Jacque Phillips, and Colorado State Rep Candidate Gabriel Cervantes.
If you would like to join them, you can email rvigil@youthrights.org
NYRA Chicago – NYRA Chicago was founded by NYRA members Annie Friday, Rimon-Hadassah Walker, and Ian Golec. The node was established with the goal of creating a community of youth rights supporters in Chicago, Illinois. They are currently prepared to spread the word about Self Directed Education, and help advocate against curfew laws in the Chicago area.
If you would like to join them, you can email Chicago@youthrights.org
NYRA East Bay – NYRA East Bay was recently founded by a few passionate NYRA members in the Oakland, California area. They are specifically focusing on advocating for restorative justice programs for youth, and preventing gun violence in their community.
If you would like to join them, you can email Oakland@youthrights.org
NYRA New Jersey – NYRA New Jersey was recently founded by a few passionate NYRA members in Newark, New Jersey, and the surrounding areas, including Edison, Englewood and Basking Ridge. They have set their sights on lowering the local voting age, advocating for youth seats on school boards, and ensuring that youth consent and confidentiality is respected by local mental health and medical professionals.
If you would like to join them, you can email newjersey@youthrights.org
The Youth Rights Podcast and Other Social Media
NYRA has recently launched the Youth Rights Podcast, which is just one of the many ways we’re trying to keep in touch with our audience through a broad social media presence. This podcast focuses on discussing issues relating to ageism, youth liberation, and systematic discrimination against young people. Listen along as various NYRA members interview guests on specific youth rights topics, to spread awareness of youth rights as a concept.
You can listen to this podcast on Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
Feel free to check out any of the episodes we have already published:
Introducing the National Youth Rights Association
Authoritarianism in Schools, Teen Mental Health and the TTI. Ft Nick Taber
NYRA Interview with Colorado State Representative Jacque Phillips
Harms of Australia’s Social Media Ban. Ft Electronic Frontiers Australia
Utah Book Bans and Media Censorship Against Students
Dr. Devon Price on Youth Rights
CPS System, Foster Care & Runaway Rights Explained by Former CPS Worker
Resisting the Draft is Fighting Ageism. Ft. Edward Hasbrouck
NYRA Interview with Gabriel Cervantes – Colorado State rep Candidate
Along with this, NYRA has been much more active on all of its social media lately. Feel free to follow us on any of the following
If you’ve been a supporter of youth rights for a long time, thank you for your continued support. And if you’ve recently discovered us, we’re glad that the word of Youth Rights is spreading. If you would like to support NYRA and its mission in any way, consider the following options.
We are always looking for volunteers, and would love to have you on the team. Thank you all for being with NYRA through its journey to fight for the rights of young people who are being discriminated against. NYRA is back on track, and more motivated than ever to change the world and end unfair treatment of youth.
It is so exciting to see all this great activity! Thank you everyone for breathing new life into the organization and continuing the struggle!