Our Team

We are the nation’s largest organization fighting for the rights of all young people. The National Youth Rights Association, or NYRA (NYE-ruh), was formed in 1998 by a group of young people who wanted to challenge the age discrimination and prejudice they were experiencing. Realizing that ageism is similar to other forms of oppression, they started NYRA as a youth-led civil rights organization in the hope of emulating other successful rights organizations that have pushed us to a more just world. Meet the team that continues that work today:

Campaign Leads

Catherine McCarthy

Catherine is a Double Duck at the University of Oregon in her third-year of law school at 21. Inspired by her father’s business, she pursued her B.S. in accounting. However, after observing political division in her hometown, she was driven to become an advocate. She became passionate about the intersection of civil rights and age throughout her educational journey as a younger scholar. Recently, she wrote about addressing reverse ageism by encouraging one to be viewed by merit and fitness, rather than age, using themes of intergenerational cooperation and individual professional development.

Ethan Bui

Ethan Bui is a political activist from Sacramento, CA. He has experience as a canvasser and organizer for several successful electoral campaigns as well as partisan organizations. Ethan is an Honors Political Science Major at Cosumnes River College where he serves in the Student Senate and plays the Tuba in the campus band. He is excited to advocate for MLDA (Minimum Legal Drinking Age) reform at NYRA.

Kayla Múzquíz

Kayla is a resilient foster care survivor of institutional abuse. They hope to use their insight of the child welfare system to spread awareness of the civil rights violations happening day in and day out, especially within the Troubled Teen Industry (TTI). She has written articles for The Hill, Ms. Magazine, and Children’s Rights. They are currently attending Palo Alto College in San Antonio, Texas. They have been a certified dog trainer since 2016 and found healing through working with dogs of all breeds. They currently work with a pit bull service dog.

Nathan Lee *

Nathan is a determined high school student. Passionate about making a change and voicing his concerns. Influenced by recent events regarding the lack of transparency in the justice system. He is advocating for awareness for the rights of youth specifically within the justice system. In his spare time, Nathan enjoys to read, bike, play violin, and explore diverse foods of his community.

Communications Team

Eric Kennedy

Eric Kennedy is a youth rights activist and youth liberationist. He often protests on the streets of Seattle and speaks out for Youth Rights at Seattle City Council meetings. He believes in the abolition of the voting age, full legal autonomy/decision making power for school age kids, a strong social safety net capable of serving every kid, reform of compulsory education systems so that schools are governed for students by the entire student body, collective bargaining organizations dedicated to consolidating and exercising power for youth as a political class, and extensive immigration rights for kids to emigrate to other countries. When he was young, he saw many peers being treated poorly, and the conclusion he came to then and still believes in now is that kids need the power to shape their own lives in order to reduce the constant abuses they face.

Imogen Milton **

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.

Katelyn Pioy

Katelyn is a high school student from New Jersey. She is a first-generation Filipino-American. She is an activist and has a passion for social justice, often spending her time volunteering for different advocacy organizations like NYRA. She hopes to create a tangible impact and bring awareness to youth rights. She wants to become a lawyer in the future. In her freetime she loves to read, write, and watch Netflix.

Oliver Fox-Rubin

Oliver has been an unschooler since 6th grade, and he is very passionate about stopping the unjust treatment of young people in all fields, but especially education, politics, and general discrimination and prejudice. He is also very interested in the environmental movement, and he and his friends and family organized a climate change strike in 2019. In his free time, he likes being with his friends and family, playing with his sister (who is a dog), and learning the language Esperanto (with gender reforms.)

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.

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.

Zane “Xillion” Miller

Zane graduated high school with a College degree, having went 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.

Human Resources

Brian Conner * **

Brian is a neuroqueer, nonbinary lesbian and a member of the autistic self-advocacy community. Brian’s interest in youth rights and self-directed education began their sophomore year of high school, when they participated in a student uprising against their school’s administration. Brian studies film, theatre, music, and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College, where she is also a member of the Midnight Cabaret, a sketch comedy group which performs at midnight every Friday. After graduating she hopes to found an urban, income-sharing intentional community.

Research Lead

Allison Jenkins *

Both an autodidact and neurodivergent Allison’s interest in IT created a career that included a “very particular set of skills”. Spending three years within the Troubled Teen Industry with an isolated upbringing in the deep south her fierce tenacity was her strength. Allison applied her tech skill set not only to survive but to generate awareness creating resources for public use. This was further refined and utilized in litigious and legislative efforts addressing the TTI. Allison specializes in open source intelligence researching institutional abuse, cult based practices, and coercive persuasion with her work referenced on the investigative resource bellingcat.

* Team Leader

** NYRA Board of Directors

The Board of Directors meets only in case of emergencies and consists of every volunteer who has been active for at least six months and demonstrated a thorough understanding of youth rights, intersectionality, and consent-based decision making.