Sky high unemployment. Astronomical government debt. A fragile environment. Rapidly rising college tuition. Our country, and our world, face massive problems, massive problems that according to venture capitalist Andrew Lerner are caused principally by the older generation. The first step to fixing this problem is understanding the severe discrimination young people face. Andrew Lerner’s new…
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 Hazelwood School District near St. Louis, Missouri is known to youth rights activists as the district that stomped on a school paper’s First Amendment rights and led to the Supreme Court’s notorious Hazelwood ruling. But more recently, this district was the site of a youth rights victory. NYRA-St. Louis, headquartered in Hazelwood West Middle…
In this 22nd run of #16tovote on the 16th, we hit a record high number of participants! Terrific! The wonderful usual participants as well as some excited newcomers made this run a huge success. This one focused a lot on the double standard aspect of the voting age issue, particularly how 16-year-olds who work must…
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…
Robert A. Heinlein stated that “Age is not an accomplishment, and youth is not a sin.” However, the current legislation surrounding youth minority in the United States implies that our concept of minority and the Christian concept of sin are not unrelated. Much as Christians surrender control to their God, minors are forced to surrender…
When debating the more minor issues of youth rights, one is often faced with a question, such as “Why do you care?” One person quoted the issue of curfews as failing a hypothetical “so what” test. Much of the difficulty in debating this type of question is the assumption that any given issue is discrete…
Can you believe it? Just completed the 21st run of #16tovote on the 16th! Been doing this a while and the recaps of them all can be found right here on this blog. And yet, despite it being single-issue, despite it having been done 21 times now, each run is unique! I admit it. I…
Another #16tovote on the 16th is coming up on Sunday, and perhaps the most common question I get during and about it, just as any of us campaigning for this lower voting age in some way, from supporters and opponents alike, is “why sixteen?” Well… why not sixteen? True, this organization’s official position on lowering…
