As we told everyone last month, NYRA has been working with the ACLU and the National Coalition Against Censorship on an amicus brief in support of the First Amendment right of youth to play video games. The US Supreme Court could take away that right this year, and we are intent on stopping them. Click…
The respondent’s brief (the main argument/brief on our side of the case) has been finished and released for the Schwarzenegger v. EMA case. The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in this case on November 2, 2010. Their decision will be handed down a few months later, no later than June 2011. NYRA, as…
Recently, a law was passed in California that banned the sale of all “violent” video games to individuals younger than 18. Now, the case of whether or not this law is constitutional is going before the United States Supreme Court. This is an important case, for it could end up setting the stage for alterations…
Arnold is trying to take away your games. Don’t let him. California passed a law that would ban the sale of all “violent” video games to individuals under 18. The case of whether or not this law is Constitutional is going before the US Supreme Court. Their ruling could have far reaching implications for how…
There’s one thing we’re frequently told and ordered throughout our lives: kids and “swear words” should not mix ever. Kids should neither hear them nor say them. If a form of entertainment uses any of these “swear words”, depending on the specific words, kids should be forbidden from it. Oh, and the unlucky kid who…
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…
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…
Let’s say you have two middle school girls, whom we’ll call JC and CC. They don’t like each other. JC then makes a video of herself and a few other girls calling CC names, and then this video appears on YouTube. Obviously, CC is very upset by this. Perhaps she could create a counter video…
Content warning: this article discusses murder, racism and antisemitism. Our country is shaken up today and trying to find answers, one day after the horrifying shooting at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC by a racist, anti-semitic extremist, killing an innocent security guard named Stephen Johns, and it happened not two weeks after…
A number of news stories have come out lately about concerned groups seeking to ban books they find objectionable or inappropriate for kids, for a variety of reasons. One group in Wisconsin successfully got several teen books banned for depicting homosexuality. In Tennessee, some parents are trying to get books removed from library shelves for…
