On an unseasonably cold May afternoon, I left my internship a little early to meet some old acquaintances on the steps in front of New York City Hall. Another member of The National Youth Rights Association had heard about Lew Fidler’s bill to end the cell phone ban in New York City schools, and he…
Well it was bound to happen. With all the media hysteria over MySpace, any student of our opportunistic elected officials should have known what was coming next. Congress has proposed a bill that would ban MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, and potentially all chatrooms, forums, blogs & Instant Messaging from school & library computers. More info here….
Its election time again! Time for NYRA members to pick the 9 valiant youth rights crusaders to lead the organization over the next year. The best part? You don’t have to be 18 to vote! All full NYRA members are eligible to vote no matter how old you are. Indeed, all full NYRA members are…
I attended the Buncombe County Board of Education’s meeting on Thursday, May 4, 2006. I arrived at 6:00 p.m. for an interview with a cameraman from WLOS. He asked me questions concerning the night’s meeting, what I planned on saying, and I got the chance to clarify for once that I am not running for…
NYRA’s Executive Director Alex Koroknay-Palicz and professor Mike Males appeared on the Internet radio show, “Advocating America’s Young Adult” for a live interview discussing various aspects of youth rights and problems that face the movement. On Thursday, April 27, 2006, radio show hosts Chloe White and Charlie Fairchild, two supporters of youth rights, interviewed Males…
This is a message to desperate parents out there. Parents of young folks who’ve made some bad choices here and there. Parents with loved ones they fear are taking dangerous roads in life. Parents of the psychologically troubled who just don’t want to have to deal with it. Don’t you love your children? Don’t you…
“Why are you in such a hurry to grow up?” It or some variation of it is the end of many debates on Youth Rights. It’s a simple way for an ageist to wriggle out of the tight spot in which they have been placed on the issues. “Just enjoy your childhood.” Anybody who has…
We dismiss ageism as a far-fetch claim of rebellious youth. But just as with Racism and Sexism, we must look beyond imposed stereotypes. We must look to what is real, what is around us.
As NYRA continues to grow, we feel that it is necessary to publish more documents and guides for youth, particularly students. A recent project that Stefan Muller and I have taken on is developing a “Student Rights Handbook” where we list all of the rights that students have at schools and any limitations on those…
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dustin Manuel, one of NYRA’s former board directors from the 2000-2001 term. Manuel recently had a story he written many years ago about youth rights published in a collection of stories he wrote. Manuel wrote the story during the fall of his junior year in 2001 while he…
