NYRA has offered its full support to the New York Civil Liberties Union’s (NYCLU) suit against New York City’s school safety officers over excessive force and wrongful arrests of students. The lawsuit documents numerous incidents in which students engaged in non-criminal conduct were handcuffed, arrested and physically assaulted by police personnel at school. The police…
I’m sure by now we’ve all heard the case of Constance McMillen, the high school student who, after being told she could not bring her girlfriend as her prom date nor wear a tuxedo, she got the ACLU involved and the school was forced not to ban her from the prom because of her sexual…
We had our second #16tovote on the 16th yesterday, and it was even bigger than last month’s! #16tovote on the 16th is our monthly event on Twitter to raise awareness of lowering the voting age by tweeting about the voting age throughout the day with the hashtag “#16tovote“. A total of roughly 52 people made…
While intermittently glancing up at the Academy Awards show last night, noticed an immediately annoying commercial. The scene panned around a very messy bedroom, while the song “16 Going on 17” from the Sound of Music was playing. Alright, so right off the bat, we’re being told 16-year-olds are irresponsible messy idiots, and already indignant,…
Looks like Spain may be the next country to recognize the validity of the youth voice by lowering their voting age to 16! The secretary of the Joventut de la Generalitat, Eugeni Villalbí, believes that if at age 16 can decide to abort children, work, and can change their treatment before the judicial system they…
Today is an amazing day for college students! In a nutshell, after enduring months to years of tuition hikes, lowering education quality, and numerous other injustices, especially in California where the state’s financial troubles have really hit hard lately, the students have had enough and are speaking out. They are marching. They are occupying campus…
My law professor said something today that resonated with me. He said: You only possess the rights that you assert. In other words, liberty is no longer (if it ever truly was) the default in our society. In a nation that ever increasingly exhibits aspects characteristic of a police state, in the era of the…
According to Droits des Non Fumeurs, anyway. Meaning “Non-Smokers’ Rights”, they’re fighting that ever-so-important battle of keeping people under 18 from smoking. And in this ever-so-important battle, they’ve whipped out an interesting kind of artillery… saying that smoking, being a “slave to tobacco”, is like being forced to perform oral sex! The slogan is bland…
Spotted a very interesting post over at the Institute for Democratic Education in America. It started as a response to the following comment: I used to direct an after-school program, which was housed in a public school classroom, and I tried to implement a democratic meeting with my middle school students (a diverse group in…
The 21 year old drinking age doesn’t work. You know it, NYRA knows it, Choose Responsibility knows it. Vote for this issue so the whole country can understand the harm that the 21 year old drinking age does: https://www.change.org/ideas/view/21_doesnt_work_change_the_drinking_age The top 10 ideas with the most votes on Change.org will be presented to President Obama…
