Alex Koroknay-Palicz | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 2, 1981 |
| Occupation(s) | Executive Director, NYRA |
| Website | www.oneandfour.org |
| Youth rights |
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Alex Koroknay-Palicz (born July 2, 1981) is an American activist in Washington, D.C. He is the former executive director of the National Youth Rights Association serving in that post from 2000 till 2012. [1]
Koroknay-Palicz was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and grew up in Holland, Michigan. By high school, he began to articulate that inequality in terms of ageism and wrote articles for his school newspaper on the subject. Senior year at Holland High School, Koroknay-Palicz discovered several local businesses with policies limiting the number of students allowed inside at any one time. Recognizing these policies as ageism, he decided to do something about it. After much research he learned these policies were illegal under Michigan's Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act. Koroknay-Palicz demanded the city to enforce this law at a speech before a Holland city council meeting. The matter was referred to Al Serrano in the city's Human Rights Department, who succeeded in overturning the policies at all the stores in question. [2]
In 1999 Koroknay-Palicz began attending American University in Washington, D.C. He quickly became involved in the youth rights movement, chiefly as the executive director of the National Youth Rights Association from 2000-2012. Koroknay-Palicz became a major figure in all aspects of the youth rights movement and made fighting ageism his chief purpose. [2] Koroknay-Palicz serves on the board of advisors for the Freechild Project. His writing appears in several publications and websites. In 2006 Koroknay-Palicz joined the Board of Directors of CAFETY. [3]
Koroknay-Palicz and Robert Epstein co-founded the First Annual National Youth Rights Day which occurred on April 14, 2010 [4] Epstein wrote The Young Person's Bill of Rights for this event. [5]
Koroknay-Palicz currently lives in Takoma Park, Maryland and served on the city's voting rights taskforce after Takoma Park became the first city in the United States to lower its voting age to 16. Testified in support of successful 16-year-old voting age bills in Takoma Park and Hyattsville, Maryland. He currently works for the National Association of Counties and in October 2014 married Tricia Gonwa. In 2015 he resumed his involvement in the National Youth Rights Association after a three-year absence. He currently serves on NYRA's Board of Directors and is organizing the #16tovote Coalition in support of the 16-year-old voting age bill in Washington, DC.
As spokesman for the National Youth Rights Association, Koroknay-Palicz's first major media citation dates to 2000 when Slate.com interviewed him. [6] Since then he has appeared on several television and radio networks, including two appearances on CNN [7] [8] and Fox News [9] [10]
Koroknay-Palicz has been quoted by several nationally recognized publications on a variety of topics related to youth rights. They include the subject of student rights in The Christian Science Monitor ; [11] youth suffrage in The Boston Globe [12] and the Los Angeles Times ; [13] the legal drinking age in The New York Times ; [14] internet censorship in the Chicago Tribune ; [15] curfews in the Jackson Free Press , [16] and; the minimum driving age in USA Today [17] and the Associated Press. [18] He has also been cited in international publications such as The Guardian . [19]
He has also been cited on the topics of ageism in the Olympics, [20] graduated driver licensing, [18] civics education [21] public schools, [22] the Bong Hits 4 Jesus trial, [23] youth criminalization, [24] and several other issues. [25] [26]
He has also been noted for his opposition to the drinking age limit policies of Mothers Against Drunk Driving who want to keep it at age 21. [27] [28] [29] [30]
Takoma Park is a city in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It is a suburb of Washington, and part of the Washington metropolitan area. Founded in 1883 and incorporated in 1890, Takoma Park, informally called "Azalea City", is a Tree City USA and a nuclear-free zone. A planned commuter suburb, it is situated along the Metropolitan Branch of the historic Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, just northeast of Washington, and it shares a border and history with the adjacent D.C. neighborhood of Takoma. It is governed by an elected mayor and six elected councilmembers, who form the city council, and an appointed city manager, under a council-manager style of government. The city's population was 17,629 at the 2020 census.
An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term adult has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a "minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of majority and is therefore regarded as independent, self-sufficient, and responsible. They may also be regarded as a "major". The typical age of attaining legal adulthood is 18, although definition may vary by legal rights, country, and psychological development.
The National Youth Rights Association (NYRA) is a youth-led Civil and political rights led by Margin Zheng & Ashawn Dabney-Small President & Vice-President of NYRA organization in the United States promoting youth rights, with approximately 10,000 members. NYRA promotes the lessening or removing of various legal restrictions that are imposed on young people but not adults, for example, the drinking age, voting age, and the imposition of youth curfew laws.
Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood (maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as being a young adult. Youth is also defined as "the appearance, freshness, vigor, spirit, etc., characteristic of one, who is young". Its definitions of a specific age range varies, as youth is not defined chronologically as a stage that can be tied to specific age ranges; nor can its end point be linked to specific activities, such as taking unpaid work, or having sexual relations.
A voting age is a minimum age established by law that a person must attain before they become eligible to vote in a public election. The most common voting age is 18 years; however, voting ages as low as 16 and as high as 25 currently exist (see list below). Most countries have set a minimum voting age, often set in their constitution. In a number of countries voting is compulsory for those eligible to vote, while in most it is optional.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is a non-profit organization in the United States, Canada and Brazil that seeks to stop drunk driving, support those affected by drunk driving, prevent underage drinking, and strive for stricter impaired driving policy, whether that impairment is caused by alcohol or any other drug. The Irving, Texas–based organization was founded on September 5, 1980, in California by Candace Lightner after her 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a drunk driver. There is at least one MADD office in every state of the United States and at least one in each province of Canada. These offices offer victim services and many resources involving alcohol safety. MADD has claimed that drunk driving has been reduced by half since its founding.
The age of majority is the threshold of legal adulthood as recognized or declared in law. It is the moment when minors cease to be considered such and assume legal control over their persons, actions, and decisions, thus terminating the control and legal responsibilities of their parents or guardian over them. Most countries set the age of majority at 18, but some jurisdictions have a higher age and others lower. The word majority here refers to having greater years and being of full age as opposed to minority, the state of being a minor. The law in a given jurisdiction may not actually use the term "age of majority". The term typically refers to a collection of laws bestowing the status of adulthood. Those under the age of majority are referred to as minors and may be legally denied certain privileges or rights.
The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 was passed by the United States Congress and was later signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on July 17, 1984. The act would punish any state that allowed persons under 21 years to purchase alcoholic beverages by reducing its annual federal highway apportionment by 10 percent. The law was later amended, lowering the penalty to 8 percent from fiscal year 2012 and beyond.
Ephebiphobia is the fear of youth. First coined as the "fear or loathing of teenagers", today the phenomenon is recognized as the "inaccurate, exaggerated and sensational characterization of young people" in a range of settings around the world. Studies of the fear of youth occur in sociology and youth studies. It is distinguished from pedophobia by being more so focused on adolescents than prepubescent children.
Youth voice refers to the distinct ideas, opinions, attitudes, knowledge, and actions of young people as a collective body. The term youth voice often groups together a diversity of perspectives and experiences, regardless of backgrounds, identities, and cultural differences. It is frequently associated with the successful application of a variety of youth development activities, including service learning, youth research, and leadership training. Additional research has shown that engaging youth voice is an essential element of effective organizational development among community and youth-serving organizations.
Adultism is "the power adults have over children". More narrowly, adultism is defined as "prejudice and accompanying systematic discrimination against young people". On a more philosophical basis, the term has also been defined as "bias towards adults... and the social addiction to adults, including their ideas, activities, and attitudes".
Alcohol consumption by youth in the United States of America, also known as underage drinking, is an umbrella term for alcohol consumption by individuals under the age of 18 in the country.
The youth rights movement in the United States has long been concerned with civil rights and intergenerational equity. Tracing its roots to youth activism during the Great Depression in the 1930s, the youth rights movement has influenced the civil rights movement, opposition to the Vietnam War, and many other movements. Since the advent of the Internet, youth rights is gaining predominance again.
Youth suffrage, or children's suffrage, is the right of youth to vote and forms part of the broader youth rights movement. Until recently Iran had a voting age of 15; Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua have a voting age of 16; and Greece, Indonesia, East Timor, Sudan, and Seychelles have a voting age of 17.
The youth rights movement seeks to grant the rights to young people that are traditionally reserved for adults, due to having reached a specific age or sufficient maturity. This is closely akin to the notion of evolving capacities within the children's rights movement, but the youth rights movement differs from the children's rights movement in that the latter places emphasis on the welfare and protection of children through the actions and decisions of adults, while the youth rights movement seeks to grant youth the liberty to make their own decisions autonomously in the ways adults are permitted to, or to lower the legal minimum ages at which such rights are acquired, such as the age of majority and the voting age.
Timeline of events related to sexual orientation and medicine
The Community Alliance For the Ethical Treatment of Youth (CAFETY) is an advocacy group for people enrolled in residential treatment programs for at-risk teenagers. The group's mission includes advocating for access to advocates, due process, alternatives to aversive behavioral interventions, and alternatives to restraints and seclusion for young people in treatment programs. They have also called for the routine reporting of abuse in residential treatment programs, as well as federal government oversight and regulation of residential treatment programs.
Adam Fletcher is a writer, speaker and consultant focused on youth voice and student engagement, and recognized for founding The Freechild Project.
