Stop the gatekeeping in Pittsburgh: Consider young people as full contributors to boards and elected posts

First-person essay by Ashley Lynn Priore

It all started in 2019 when I ran for the Pittsburgh Board of Education. I was 18 when I started my campaign. There was a lack of youth representation, and I thought it was strange that people who have not been in school for decades were making decisions for students who are facing very different educational challenges and innovations.

I also thought, given organizations like Young Democrats of Allegheny County and trailblazers like state Rep. Summer Lee, I would be at least cheered on by other young Democrats. However, I wasn’t the right kind of young that people were looking for. I wasn’t in my late 20s, and I was too ambitious for people’s liking. I was “too young” and should focus on “having fun” and “going to school,” according to one elected official.

My friend and fellow University of Pittsburgh student Kathryn Fleisher calls it “generational animosity” or a harsh divide between the ages that isn’t doing much good. I first met Kathryn in 2018 when Meredith Mavero of the Institute of Politics at Pitt encouraged us to meet. We are two strong young women trying to make a change in the region. Kathryn, now a senior double majoring in politics and philosophy and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, founded Not My Generation, a gun violence prevention nonprofit, after the Tree of Life synagogue massacre.

“I think that young people have been made to feel as if their place in a room is conditional and that they are somehow doing someone a favor or, you know, they have a special appointment or a special seat or a special election or whatever it is,” Fleisher said. “And I think that that really breeds a lot of room for disputes and animosity and protectiveness over positions and over organizations, because the people who are there feel like they have to represent all young people.”

I knew too much about feeling conditional in a room. I founded a nonprofit at the age of 14, served on countless boards and just thought the feeling of conditionality was something that would pass over time. I never really thought about generational divides until people who were supporting millennials didn’t support me. I was too young. Still in school. It wasn’t my time.

I began to research more. I define youth as younger than 25. The term “youth” and “young people” means something different to every individual. There is a large divide between generation Z and millennials (aka people younger than 25 and people between 25 and 35). Millennials seem to be the right kind of young for many people — perhaps because they completed college and are ready to start their careers? But this is excluding a whole swath of the population who are having decisions made for them.

Ashley Lynn Priore is the founder, president and CEO at Queen’s Gambit, a national organization empowering communities through chess and strategy. She is a student at the University of Pittsburgh. (Photo by Jay Manning/PublicSource)

 

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Stop the gatekeeping in Pittsburgh: Consider young people as full contributors to boards and elected posts

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