The adult world, the courts, and the legislature treat the rights of minors as disposable shorthand for incapacity, leading to laws that harm and oppress students and minors without them having any say. Being under 18 shouldn’t make you any less of an autonomous person, protection shouldn’t mean substitution of rights and the loss of autonomy and dignity as a human under our constitution. A phone ban is a lazy way to avoid education reform, and you can’t apply a restriction to everyone under 18 without stripping millions of capable individuals of their freedom. For example: A ban on minors working after 10 pm is restricting voluntary movement, a ban on employers requiring a minor to work after 10 pm protects a minor from coercive labor, without denying them freedom of choice. In Massachusetts, a case called Houston v Commonwealth has made it to the appeals court. Houston is a 17 year old, who won an appeal against his school district in order to receive records which he used to compile a report on student discipline. His findings were that of children with disabilities being disciplined at 6x the rate of others, he took that information and made a complaint to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, who refused to even look at his complaint because of his age. As a result, Houston sued D.E.S.E. and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the superior court, citing the Mature Minor Doctrine and the landmark Goodridge precedent. His case, which was fully procedurally compliant, and entirely compiled by him, was striken from the record for his refusal to obtain counsel, and his motion to proceed in his own capacity was categorically denied without a determination or hearing. His appeal followed two days later, and was only recently updated with a brief, his argument is completely unique, and was perfectly compliant, the Appeals Court has docketed his case, and he will be the first minor to address the court on his own in centuries. There was no finding of incapacity or incompetence, a perfect understanding—Yet at every step along the way, he was categorically denied purely by his class. It is increasingly important among these restrictive and dangerous phone and social media bans, to protect the rights of minors, and to recognize them as equal citizens with fully developed constitutional rights (Commonwealth v Weston W) and the same dignity and presumption of capacity as any other person.
Started
The adult world, the courts, and the legislature treat the rights of minors as disposable shorthand for incapacity, leading to laws that harm and oppress students and minors without them having any say. Being under 18 shouldn’t make you any less of an autonomous person, protection shouldn’t mean substitution of rights and the loss of autonomy and dignity as a human under our constitution. A phone ban is a lazy way to avoid education reform, and you can’t apply a restriction to everyone under 18 without stripping millions of capable individuals of their freedom. For example: A ban on minors working after 10 pm is restricting voluntary movement, a ban on employers requiring a minor to work after 10 pm protects a minor from coercive labor, without denying them freedom of choice. In Massachusetts, a case called Houston v Commonwealth has made it to the appeals court. Houston is a 17 year old, who won an appeal against his school district in order to receive records which he used to compile a report on student discipline. His findings were that of children with disabilities being disciplined at 6x the rate of others, he took that information and made a complaint to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, who refused to even look at his complaint because of his age. As a result, Houston sued D.E.S.E. and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the superior court, citing the Mature Minor Doctrine and the landmark Goodridge precedent. His case, which was fully procedurally compliant, and entirely compiled by him, was striken from the record for his refusal to obtain counsel, and his motion to proceed in his own capacity was categorically denied without a determination or hearing. His appeal followed two days later, and was only recently updated with a brief, his argument is completely unique, and was perfectly compliant, the Appeals Court has docketed his case, and he will be the first minor to address the court on his own in centuries. There was no finding of incapacity or incompetence, a perfect understanding—Yet at every step along the way, he was categorically denied purely by his class. It is increasingly important among these restrictive and dangerous phone and social media bans, to protect the rights of minors, and to recognize them as equal citizens with fully developed constitutional rights (Commonwealth v Weston W) and the same dignity and presumption of capacity as any other person.
Started
