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…
WASHINGTON – The National Youth Rights Association (NYRA) announced the recipients of its second annual awards, which were formally presented on July 30 at the 2011 NYRA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Youth rights is the concept that young people are entitled to the rights and civil liberties enjoyed by all American citizens. Three separate…
NYRA Berkeley (2004 – 2007)NYRA Vermont (2004 – 2007)NYRA Bergen County (2007 – 2011)NYRA Southeast Florida (2008 – 2011)NYRA Zionsville Student Rights Union (2008 – 2010) NYRA Berkeley (2004 – 2007) NYRA’s Berkeley Chapter carried out our most successful push to lower the voting age in California. Letter Writing Campaign. The chapter began in 2005…
Two youth-led NYRA-allied organizations have made great strides towards making a lower voting age a reality. In 2002, Cambridge, Massachusetts passed a home rule petition to lower the voting age through the Cambridge City Council and that legislation has been waiting legislative action at the state level ever since. In 2004 the Cambridge Kids Council,…
NYRA-NYU experienced a great increase in activity over the past few months and has held three successful events as well as being approved as a full NYU club for the 2011-2012 academic year. For National Youth Rights Day, the chapter held an event on campus titled “Activism 101”, which taught a group of interested students…
A bill to lower the voting age has recently been introduced in Washington State by Sen. Scott White, thanks to our newest chapter NYRA-Seattle. Senate Bill 5621 has created the possibility of a lower voting age in Washington, allowing 14 year olds to vote for school board members. Although the odds of the bill actually…
On January 27th, NYRA had its first chapters meeting of the year. 10 chapters were present, including NYRA-Bergen County, NYRA-New York University, NYRA-Southeast Florida, NYRA-Los Angeles, NYRA-Stockton, NYRA-Potsdam, NYRA-Nanuet, NYRA-Austin, NYRA-DC, and NYRA-Berkeley. NYRA-Bergen County has managed to get the student government reinstated at Midland Park High School after their long fight with the Board…
A few days ago, I spoke to Fox News about the upcoming video game Bulletstorm and its connection to young people. Dubbed by this recent story to be “the worst video game in the world?”, two psychologists (who somehow survived handling Bulletstorm themselves) countered my argument with unsubstantiated views that it would make young gamers…
Recently, councilmembers in San Juan Capistrano, California considered proposals to enhance their existing curfew laws. Amongst the new ideas considered were a daytime curfew during school hours and increased fines for the parents of young people who dare to go outside. Realizing that council members weren’t completely sold on the idea and that they clearly…
What a week for youth rights! At times like this, I am thrilled to be a NYRA member. With our tiny budget but a great deal of passion, NYRA was able to have a significant impact on all three branches of government this week. It makes me happy to see what our organization can accomplish,…
