Yet another reason we should lower the voting age The fallout from the Parkland shooting has brought the country’s attention to several facts that often go overlooked. Since the shooting, more people are starting to see that young people have an immediate stake in the way the country is run. And, secondly, thanks to student…
Members of Portland Student Rights Union – A NYRA Chapter We originally started the Portland Student Rights Union (SRU) in October 2017 to protest the administration of our school, the Metropolitan Learning Center Administration in Portland, Oregon, taking away all student breaks as a form of collective punishment. Even though we were an unofficial group,…
WASHINGTON, D.C. April 10, 2018: The National Youth Rights Association applauds Councilmember Charles Allen for introducing the Youth Vote Amendment Act of 2018 today, and calls upon the DC Council to become the first location in the United States to permit 16-year-olds to vote for president. In 2013 Takoma Park, Md. became the first city…
Time speeds up A year represents less perceived time to someone in their 90s than it does to someone in their teens. You can see how time accelerates as we get older in this interactive visualization by Maximilian Keiner. Keiner argues that to human beings, the first 18 years of life seem just as long…
Evan Low is a California Assemblymember representing the 28th District and is no stranger to ageism. When he hit the streets to run for Campbell City Council at the age of 21, voters answered their doors asking, “What school do you go to?” or said, “I have shirts and ties that are older than you!”…
We at the Memphis Youth Union (MemYU) have decided to develop our local campaign to state. Our goal? Extension of voting rights to sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds in local and state elections in Tennessee! We are a NYRA chapter that consists of seven high-school-aged youth community organizers and one adult ally working with a local non-profit,…
The “Lord of the Flies” argument The “Lord of the Flies” argument goes like this. Let’s say I want to lower the voting age, or give students more constitutional protections in school. Someone using the argument would reply, “Bad idea. That would undermine adult authority and lead to a ‘Lord of the Flies’ scenario.” However,…
Members of the Greenbelt City Council consider a bill to lower the voting age. On Monday, December 11, 2017, Greenbelt, Maryland came one step closer to becoming the third city in the United States to lower the voting age to 16 for all local elections. After successfully gaining the support of the majority of voters…
Today is a vote-a-rama for the movement to lower the voting age with two Maryland towns taking up the issue at their meetings tonight. In Greenbelt, Maryland, the city council is voting on Resolution 2057 to lower the voting age to 16. After voters last month passed an advisory measure in favor of lowering the…
In the 1980s, states decided to raise their drinking age to 21. Surprisingly, it wasn’t because of safety, public pressure, or even their own emotions. The main reason states raised the drinking age was because they risked losing 10% of their federal highway funds to the National Minimum Drinking Age Act (NMDAA). The Supreme Court…
