Age Is Just a Number

At the headquarters, a high school intern works on the computer that holds the membership list. There are 7,500 names in the association's database, but only 150 pay to belong. "Young people don't have much money," Koroknay-Palicz points out. Dues are $10 a month. Some students who can afford more send in larger donations.

NYRA's annual budget last year was about $16,000. Koroknay-Palicz has subsidized his salary of $8,000 by working at an auto parts store and tutoring. He eats a lot of ramen noodles.

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Youth rights is not a front-burner issue. It's more like an all-day roux on the back of the stove, simmering, occasionally receiving a stir.

At a recent Democratic debate, for example, someone asked the candidates if they were in favor of removing the requirement that a state must have a legal drinking age of 21 to receive federal highway funds. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and Christopher Dodd all opposed lifting the requirement.

Only Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich were in favor of lowering the drinking age. Kucinich even said he wants to lower the voting age to 16.

"I thought that Kucinich's call for lowering the voting age . . . was bizarre," Chris Matthews said on MSNBC after the debate. Matthews was echoing the sentiments of many Americans. "I mean, do you get it with your bicycle?"

Jabs like that don't help the youth rights movement gain gravitas.

On the home page of the group's Web site, Youthrights.org, are these words: "The Last Civil Rights Movement." Jackie Woinsky, 26, one of Koroknay-Palicz's college friends, teaches first grade in Silver Spring. She admires him. "A lot of ideas can seem crazy and off-the-wall at first," she says. "Other similar civil rights movements have gone through similar paths." But Julian Bond, chairman of the board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and a veteran of the civil rights movement, says he is not sure that the youth rights push qualifies. "Kids obviously do have human rights," he says, "but society has decided, and properly, I think, that they are not mature enough to have certain rights: the right to drive, to go to an X-rated movie, the right to buy cigarettes. I think society has made wise decisions, the right decisions, about the rights given to young people."

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Not far from Dupont Circle, Koroknay-Palicz strolls past a convenience store that -- like the mini-marts that ticked him off in the first place -- restricts the number of students allowed inside at one time. Nearby is a YMCA that you can't join unless you are 18 and the U-topia Bar & Grill, where you must be 21 or older to stay past 11 p.m.

True utopia, Koroknay-Palicz says, will be a place where "society will look at people as they are, not judge them by their birth dates." People who are mature, he says, should be allowed to make decisions for themselves.