Over the course of the past week or so, I have been working extensively on a project that I feel is important to youth rights. It may be considered one of the first stepping stones to gaining increased rights, but it is a step in the right direction - a gradual process.
As a lot of you know, I like to keep atop of current events and being informed of anything going on with the organizations I am involved in or the governments that affect my life.
So, anyway, last week I got the idea of working to propose a student representative position to my county’s school board. I knew it would be a hard, long and drawn out process, but I also knew it would be worth it. I immediately began to work on the project, and to do so, I sought help from one of NYRA’s members, Jess Campbell, of Oregon. Campbell is serving as a youth advisor to her city’s council. So, I figured who else would be better to ask than her?
She gave me all sorts of guidance and ideas on how to go about this proposal to the school board. After working with her for a couple of days, I got the gist of what I needed to do. I began collecting my thoughts onto a basic outline, and over the next day or so, that evolved into a well-thought out letter explaining the need for a student representative on the school board.
At the start of the week, I went around to my teachers’ classrooms asking for their support. I also went around to teachers that I had never spoken to before that day. It was a thrilling process, and every time I got a new signature, I beamed with delight.
I proceeded to present the idea to one of the school’s student council advisors, and she made some suggestions. (I am a member of the student council, by the way). She told me that I should present my idea to the executive committee (such as the student council president, class presidents, and other officers). I thought this was a good idea, so that was to be undertaken next.
The next morning, I explained my ideas for the position, and they all seemed to be in favor. Well, of course they were. They all voted to support my plan - there was not a single “no” vote. This was a great delight.
Right after this, I went with the advisor to my principal’s office. My principal and I get along very well, so I was not worried. I told her my ideas, and she was very impressed. She signed her support right away.
That night, Alex Koroknay-Palicz and I worked on a press release describing the day’s events. Later that night, I faxed a copy of the release to my local television news station. Koroknay-Palicz said he would call my city’s newspaper the next morning.
I went to sleep that night not really expecting any new events at all for the next day. But, boy, was I ever wrong.
I do agree with integrating youth in with the adult community though. That’s one of the many positive benefits that youth rights holds for the world.
While many of Adam’s points were unclear, I think the basis of his argument is that the assumption that youth and adults are not already integrated is a myth. Or perhaps that it is a myth for people who aren’t middle-class and white. He didn’t present any evidence of this, and I am highly suspicious as to what he bases his claims on.
From my perspective the segregation of young people and adults seems quite clear. This segregation is enforced by law and tradition by adults eager to exclude youth from their world, and indeed employed by youth as a defense mechanism to escape from oppressive, patronizing adults around them. From what I’ve seen this segregation exists at all levels of society and socio-economic levels.
Young people are locked into schools where they live separated off from adults. Adults are off in the working world, rarely relating to young people. For most hours of most days these two groups spend time with their on age-cohorts, and not around those much younger or much older than then. Exceptions do of course exist. Kids have parents and other family members. Students have teachers. Young church members have youth group pastors and so on. However in nearly all of these situations there exists a command-obey relationship. To call these situations truly integrated is blind to reality.
The simplest way to put this is to ask who your friends are? If you are going to go out to a movie, or go grab a bite to eat, or go to a party, or just hang out for the evening doing who knows what, who do you hang out with socially? My guess, with few exceptions, are people generally of your own age group. And before Adam tries yet again to paint me (and indeed all NYRA) as sheltered in an upper-middle class white world, I will point out again that my above point holds true for all my friends be they poor black, upper-middle-class white, poor white, middle-class Hispanic, or any other combination. (more…)
This essay is about age-based curfew laws, a proposal that they should be abolished. I even unleashed the full power of Mike Males (who is, as you may know, a sociologist) and his coauthored study on the effectiveness in age-based curfews. Also doubleplusungood.
Age-based curfew laws in the United States should be abolished.
There is no question that the intent of curfews—to reduce crime and protect potential victims of crime—is a noble one, but there is serious evidence that curfew laws are largely ineffective, even counterproductive, in fulfilling this goal. In addition, enforcement of curfews often disproportionately targets people in poorer areas and minorities. Curfew laws also set a dangerous precedent for government involvement in the lives of private citizens and their families.
One possible perspective on curfew laws is their effects on the rights of young people and their families. Teenagers and young children are recognized as citizens by the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” (Constitution) Although freedom of mobility is not explicitly guaranteed in the Constitution, the fact that that freedom is restricted through incarceration for people convicted of crimes indicates that it is a freedom generally recognized by society, and the Ninth Amendment (“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”) has been used to guarantee other rights not written out in the Constitution, such as the right to privacy and the right to non-verbal symbolic expression. This right to free mobility is denied to young people by curfew laws, even when their maturity, life experience, size, and all other relevant factors are such that their age warrants no special treatment, as is the case for seventeen-year-olds the day before their eighteenth birthday, for example. It seems it would be difficult to justify arresting young people merely for being in public at certain times as a fulfillment of the constitutional mandate to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
Another right traditionally recognized by common law and the courts is the right to parent children without needless governmental intrusion, especially when this parenting is both done by a fit parent and in the best interests of the teenager or child in question. Usually when there is a conflict with these parents’ rights, youth rights, and government, the conflict is between the parents and the youth; but when the parents and the young person are in agreement, the government’s only justification for intervening is when a truly criminal act is involved. It is one thing if the government steps in because the parent is allowing the young person to steal, for example, or perhaps do drugs, but the parent’s choice to allow the young person to be in public at certain times of the day is hardly a reason to abrogate parental rights.
Another perspective on the constitutionality of age-based curfew laws is to view the Constitution and its amendments as documents whose primary purpose is not to delineate the rights granted to citizens, but to detail in what situations and in what ways the government may exercise its power, particularly to limit how the government may intervene when citizens are exercising natural, not government-given, rights (“life, liberty, and property”). Seen in this light, the danger of curfew laws is that they set a disturbing precedent for the use—and abuse—of government authority. If the government has so much power that it can arrest people for the crime of being out at certain times of day, that it can arbitrarily deprive an entire segment of the population of the ability to legally walk down the sidewalk without a conviction or trial or hearing or even a charge of criminality, what power doesn’t the government have? If the government can literally place an entire group of people under house (or school) arrest without due process of law on the assumption that if any member of that group is not in some institution or under the supervision of parent or state, even with parental permission, that parent must be “up to no good,” what can the government not do? (more…)
We’ve all had the feeling at some point. We’ve all seen a sign or been told something by a store employee, parent or school administrator that was just such an ageist injustice that it couldn’t go unchallenged. Even the least argumentative youth rights supporters must have felt the need to challenge a small ageist injustice at one point. For people like me who have to argue with everything, it happens significantly more often than that. Katrina even blogged about it in her December 11 entry, “Pet Store.” I’m not talking about major things, like a city-wide curfew or the voting age. I’m talking about a public place that doesn’t allow unattended youth or a store that voluntarily refuses to sell certain items to people under 18. This even applies to young people who wish to sit down and have a discussion with their overprotective parents or school administrators.
The urge to complain to an employee (parent, school administrator…) about these policies is a perfectly natural one for youth rights supporters to have, and it’s always a great idea to fight ageism wherever you see it, however, there are a few things that I have noticed during my years of complaining about ageism that help, and a few things I have seen on the NYRA forums and elsewhere that do not. So, here’s my official list of Complaining Tips in no particular order.
1. Don’t speak out of anger. If the injustice in question is such a horrible one that it gets you really passionate, maybe it’s better not to challenge it at the moment. Come back later or get a contact address (e-mail or regular mail) or phone number. Give it time, get your thoughts together, and then complain. Speaking on the spot out of emotion won’t help. You’ll just end up screaming or being rude, and you also won’t argue at your best. Anger blocks out the best arguments and answers and you’ll be left using the same reason over and over. It just won’t help. Believe me, I know how tempting it is to complain about it when you’re angry and to just yell and chew the employee out, but it’ll defeat any chance you had of getting the policy reversed. Just don’t do it.
2. Talk to a manager, the school principal, or someone else who is in charge. Yes, you can try yelling at the first employee (teacher, etc.) you see, but I can already tell you what response you’ll get. It will undoubtedly be some variant of, “I’m sorry. I don’t make the rules, I just have to follow them.” This is a very easy response for people to give; it allows them to get rid of you without agreeing with you. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve heard that excuse. If the first person you ask about the policy uses this excuse, ask him who does make the rules and ask to talk to that person. If this person is not available at the moment, ask what the best time to see him would be or take a phone number or address. If the store is a chain, or the place is run by a central authority and the policy is not local, ask for an address or number to call.
3. Don’t think you always have to complain in person. It’s fine to do so and is often the easiest way, but I’ve found that sometimes a letter or e-mail is the best form to use for these situations. It lets you collect your thoughts and spend time wording them rather than just speaking on the spot. The backspace key is your friend. (more…)
Here is an essay I wrote for my English class last semester. It is about “Involuntary Volunteering,” the practice in some high schools (and middle and elementary schools as well, which is actually worse) requiring students to complete a certain amount community service in order to graduate. (Community service graduation requirements, or for the Orwellians out there, comserve gradreqs. Doubleplusungood.) Since this was to be an evaluation essay, all I could really say was that they stunk, but the implication is, they shouldn’t be allowed either. So, the essay:
Students should not have to perform a certain number of hours of community service in order to graduate from public high schools.
This is because a good graduation requirement for a public high school should be constitutional and within the school’s legal scope of power, useful and fitting with the primary purpose of the school, and nondiscriminatory.
As a part of the government, the constitutional limitations on schools are usually recognized by the Supreme Court, whose job it is to interpret the Constitution. It doesn’t take much interpreting, however, to see that community service graduation requirements are unconstitutional and, indeed, unethical. The Thirteenth Amendment prohibits American citizens from being forced to do unpaid labor without due process of law. These students have committed no crime and faced no trial, and yet they have been sentenced to a choice between unpaid labor or a future with no diploma and limited prospects, simply because they refused to be exploited in this manner. We have a word for this “choice”: slavery.
The illegality of community service graduation requirements should be enough to stop school administrators from using them. Yet the attitudes of many public schools regarding legality or the Constitution are represented by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in her essay “Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right From Wrong:” “[T]he arguments against service… [are] more strained. The president of the Maryland Teachers Association, for example, claimed that it violated the Thirteenth Amendment. What’s really bothering the educators? Probably the fact that they would be required to change their teaching methods”—apparently a “claim” of unconstitutionality holds no water for her, at least.
However, the constitutionality of these requirements is not the only weak point. For instance, requirements should fit in with the purposes of the school. It would be silly, for example, for coaches to work with people to be swift track runners and then base all of the awards at the track meet on an I.Q. test, or for automobiles to be built for convenience and safety and then rate them according to the usefulness of the seat cushions as rose fertilizer. So, if a school’s primary purpose were to train the next generation of litter lifters, food-bank-canned-food shelvers, and soup-kitchen workers, a community service requirement would make sense. But it isn’t and it doesn’t. Arguments that schools should teach (white, middle-class Protestant) values—indeed, that thinking that expecting students and the community to ignore over a century of slavery-free America in order to force students to pick up litter by the roadside would teach those values—only make sense if you don’t look too closely. A school’s primary purpose is to prepare students, through education, to be physically, mentally, and emotionally fit for life. As a government-run, largely compulsory institution, there is no requirement—there cannot be any requirement—for schools to make students morally straight as well as physically strong and mentally awake. If students want to be reverent, clean, cheerful, and all the rest, they can join the Scouts. (more…)
A thread in the NYRA forums about gym reminded me of some experiences of mine in PE class, and indeed in all sports going back to when I was quite young.
In elementary school we had these raucous soccer games during recess. One part of the playground had a very small field set up with goal posts at either end. The length of this pseudo-field was no doubt less than the width of a regulation soccer or football field, but it was the place to be. Lots of kids from the playground (boys mainly) would participate in these epic battles.
It was soccer, but… with a twist. It wasn’t exactly an organized match. No captains, no picking teams, no positions. Heck it was probably 20 on 20 (or 25 on 15) for most of the ‘games’. Small field, lots of people, it was pretty chaotic. Part of the twist is also that all the bullies and best athletes always picked to be on the same team. Sadly that isn’t very unusual, but more on that later. The last twist was the game didn’t always respect the rules of soccer. It wasn’t uncommon for one of the bullies to pick up the ball and walk straight ahead towards the opposing goal with all his teammates walking around him in a pack beating down anyone who got in their way.
Usually that “anyone” was me.
I didn’t stand for it. I was always on the other side in these competitions, always the leader of the opposition. I was the guy rallying together all the misfits, outcasts, and honorable athletes into the team that played fairly and confronted the bastards on the other side. We usually lost.
I wasn’t the best athlete in the world, but I played my heart out. I was also always our team’s main cheerleader, driving everyone on, encouraging them to keep fighting. Sometimes my team would get a lead and then all the bullies and jocks would switch to our team. Sometimes I’d welcome them and take it as a sign of my success, other times I’d just switch to their old team and keep fighting. Sometimes it would pay off and we would actually win. (more…)
I would like to commend Al Aynsley-Green, the Children’s Commissioner of England, for stating that youth are “capable of voting and want to do so.”
He goes on to say:
“…16-year-olds should be involved very much in the democratic process.”
“They’ve got important things to say and they understand how the adult world works.”
This is very impressive. Aynsley-Green is serving as the first Children’s Commissioner for England, and although it may not turn out the same in the US as in England, this makes me think that the youth in the United States are in need of a “commissioner.”
The British have gotten on the right track, but it is apparent that the US has failed to do so. For the United States to get on the right track, we need people like you who are interested in youth rights. There are so many things that can be done, such as writing letters to the editors of school newspapers, local papers, and to your representatives in the government. It’s time to turn the tide, and now is the time to do it.
Over on the Freechild Blog, Adam writes about this awesome Gandhi quote, then quickly goes off on a tangent about Laura Bush:
For instance, Mr. Bush’s wife Laura has spent the last two years being concerned about America’s youth. From the beginning, her initiative focused on the problems young people face. In a rather traditional and completely conservative fashion, the program, “Helping America’s Youth”, has identified young people as broken objects in need of being helped, instead of seeing them as complete people who are ready to help others. This type of deficit model is really tricky, primarily because it decieves a large number of adults into justifying their own patriarchial, top-down models of youth development and education.
I agree completely that seeing youth as broken objects that need to be fixed is the problem we are facing. That impression of youth is what we are up against and it can be found in individuals of all political leanings and all positions in society. But since I always think simply agreeing with someone is boring, I’ll look for something I disagree with Adam about instead of all the stuff I agree about.
My central point involves how Adam says we should see youth “as complete people who are ready to help others”. Without question this is a far better view of youth than what he credits Laura Bush as espousing, no debate there. However is it the best possible view of youth?
I see this kind of language thrown around a lot by proto-youth rights people in the “youth voice” or “youth involvement” movements, and it always irks me. Typically I don’t say anything because its better than the alternative, but it being Valentines Day and me being bitter I’m going to speak to it.
I am irked by this drive for community service because at some level it still feels like using youth. Lets expend all our energy on pushing or enabling youth to work for others. Lets get young people to pick up parks, feed homeless people, wash windows, etc. All good things, without question, but if young people spend all their time helping other people, who helps youth? (more…)
I almost feel like I’ve betrayed the unwritten code of grassroot orgs everywhere.
A week ago, I pushed a resolution across NYRA Berkeley Execs. To request and encourage donations of $1 from all membership, once a month. Execs would be everything short of required to donate $5. I posted this to the NYRA Berkeley e-tree, so some of you may know.
On one hand, I’m tired of “placeholder” members. People who sign up, and then don’t come to events or even communicate. They think we have a nice idea and they sign-up, but then I’m faced with unrealistic assumptions when I plan events. “Mandatory” donations will separate the people who want to see something happen and the people who have a nice chuckle at my countless e-mails.
On the other hand, I don’t want to alienate those members. Today, they aren’t interested. Tommorrow, they are. The basic gist is that I don’t like the idea of forced donation.
So I put in some nice clauses. You don’t have to donate. It’s all up to you. If you donate time, that’s good enough for me. I will suck you dry for your time, but I will never take your last dollar.
More reasons: Non-profit doesn’t mean poor. What I would give to have $20 to $30 on hand to make copies at a moments notice. To buy coffee for a member. To pay for transportation to city hall. Just to have!
Stable income is key. If we can budget our money and put some away for rainy days, we’ll be in luck. STABLE!
Is this an ad for sucking money out of your chapter? No. I’m offering you both sides. In the recruiting stages, not so good. But I’m not as concerned with signing up new people as I am with getting people involved and getting stuff done. I want to lower the voting age, and I want to do it now.
Why am I posting it here? Well, either to get your vote of confidence or for you to tell me I’m off my rocker, and I should sack this resolution until I lose everything.
A few days ago, I found myself in a situation familiar to most youth rights activists. NYRA came up in the course of conversation, and one of my classmates asked me when I felt people should be granted the right to vote. I responded by stating that everyone who is governed by laws should have a say in how those laws are made. I went on to contend that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; not the elders, the wealthy, the intelligentsia or any other exclusive group. Another individual told me that this position was asinine, and that ageism has rightfully existed since the beginning of time. This argument seems to come up rather often, especially when a disagreement arises from some radical abstract (in this case, suffrage for newborns.)
But is this a legitimate reason to perpetuate ageism? Should we hold true to all of our traditions, whatever they may be? If this line of reasoning is brought to its logical extreme it quickly becomes absurd. War has existed for as long as civilization but that does not mean everyone working towards peace is a lost idealist. The disparity between rich and poor has been with us for all of human history, but that does not make economic justice an impossible dream. Sexism and racial bigotry have been woven in to the fabric of our beings over thousands of years, but it is generally accepted that these are evils of which we must work to rid ourselves. Three hundred years ago democracy itself was regarded as a radical concept because autocracy had been the norm since Caesar.
As civilization moves forward, we must strive towards ideals and away from the unjust authoritarianism that seemed pragmatic in more primitive circumstances. The struggle between youth rights and ageism illustrates this point quite vividly. As the quality of life improves, it should become easier for us to do what is right in spite of some archaic illusion of practicality.
When politicians promote ageist policies, they often do so in an attempt to protect young people. In this age, these individuals should recognize that the best way to protect young people is to afford them enough liberty to protect themselves. The socioeconomic conditions that led to child labor laws, compulsory education, and other such institutions are no longer prevalent. It is time for us to admit that this form of protectionism is no longer necessary, if it was ever necessary at all.
Young people have the same birthright to self governance as the rest of us. There is nothing in Locke, nothing in the Bible, nothing anywhere in the great canon of human thought which endorses ageism as being inherently good. There are passages in the Old Testament, in the works of Confucius and elsewhere, that seem to promote ageism in order to address practical concerns. But in a modern and democratic society, we must realize that these circumstances no longer exist to the extent that they once did. We are rapidly progressing toward a point where that which works is indistinguishable from that which is right.
We have long held the notion that every one ought to be as free as their circumstances allow. Sweeping advances in technology, economics, and governance have permitted us to abandon this qualifier with greater ease. While the pursuit of comfort and safety should never have obstructed liberty anyway, it won’t be long until the day when we do not have to choose one over the other.
Age of Reason is a group blog for the National Youth Rights Association, maintained by our members to help educate and inform the public about youth rights.
Children organizing for political rights will probably be treated initially with ridicule and derision, and then with misunderstanding and perhaps eventually violence if the experience of the struggle for women's suffrage is any precedent. - Bob Franklin
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