Today we’d like to introduce you to Zane Miller.
Hi Zane, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My name is Zane Miller, and I serve as the current President of the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA), which is the largest youth rights organization in the country. Youth Rights has always been an important issue to me, especially because of the mistreatment I experienced as a teenager. As a teenager, I was forced into the center of a brutal custody battle between my parents, where I felt like I wasn’t been seen as a competent individual, capable of making my own decisions, by both the legal system and my own parents. My parents were emotionally abusive, had robbed me of over $6,000 I made from a year of working, and even attempted to get pull me from school (which would have shattered the work I had put into getting a college degree while in high school). The family law system completely ignored my concerns and refused to take my experiences into consideration when deciding the custody arrangement. Along with this, I viewed so many of my friends going through similar, if not worse experiences, where they were repeatedly put down by both educational and legal systems as well as their own parents. Observing all of this, combined with my own tough life experiences gave me a drive to protect the rights and freedoms of young people from discriminatory institutions and harsh family systems that refused to respect their self agency.
I joined NYRA in September of 2025, and latched onto it because it seemed to be the only organization that actively fought for the civil liberties of young people. Since then, I have taken a leading role in managing every aspect of the organization, including blog posts, youtube videos, social media content, volunteer staffing, and organizing local nodes of members. I have written several articles for NYRA, including articles advocating against conversion therapy for minors, advocating against phone bans in schools, and raising awareness of the dangers of banks’ discriminatory polices against young people. I founded NYRA’s Youth Rights podcast, which interviews young people who have been victims of all types of organizations, and also interviews youth right supporters to raise awareness of all types of issues that young people face at the hands of discriminatory systems.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
NYRA has had a long road full of struggles. Back in 2011, we were at our height, at the point where we were pulling in around 60,000 dollars a year in donations, testifying in front of congress, influencing supreme court decisions, appearing on news outlets regularly, and successfully leading campaigns to lower the voting age in states’ local elections. Since then, things had slowed down. When I joined NYRA, it was at a more stagnant state, where it hadn’t posted on most of its social media in a year, was slacking on its website, and most of its local nodes were inactive. But I took the lead in revamping the entire organization, getting us to the point that we’re actively rolling out blog posts, videos, and social media content multiple times a week. Along with that we have onboarded several new volunteers, and established multiple local nodes, including our new Seattle, Chicago, New Jersey and Colorado nodes.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
The National Youth Rights Association is a Non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the civil liberties of young people from ageism and discrimination. What sets our organization apart from others’ is that most organizations relating to children’s rights look at things from a human rights aspect. For example, they’ll focus on things like juvenile justice, or food scarcity, etc. NYRA focuses on civil rights for young people, including voting rights, financial independence, freedom of movement, freedom from curfews, students rights, medical autonomy, freedom from censorship, freedom from parental oppression, etc. This civil rights aspect makes us incredibly unique, because of the immense taboo that follows youth rights. it is a long held social stigma that young people should not have rights to make decisions about their lives and futures, due to their age, which is the exact belief we are fighting against. We believe that young people deserve freedom, autonomy and civil rights just as adults have.
What matters most to you?
What matters the most to me about NYRA and youth rights, is getting to give people a voice, when they were previously pushed down by the system. A project that I’ve been starting recently with NYRA, is getting people’s “Youth Rights Stories” out to the world. It is extremely important to me to interview young people who have experienced age discrimination from businesses, schools, the government, the legal system, their own families, etc, and then get those stories out for the world to hear. Because youth rights is such a niche issue that many people don’t place a high importance on, getting these stories out for people to see is so important to raise awareness of the struggles that are faced exclusively by young people, because of these oppressive systems they are forced to live under. Oftentimes, young people don’t have a voice to speak out, or their words are ignored due to their age and perceived incompetence, so NYRA does its best to offer them the voice they had been denied their whole lives.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.youthrights.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/youthrights/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YouthRights/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/YouthRights/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/nyrausa/
