Students unofficially re-established a chapter of the Youth Democratic Socialists of America last month, reviving the political and labor-focused organization at GW after four years of inactivity.
Leaders of GW YDSA said the progressive organization, which leans farther left than GW College Democrats but still lends support to Democratic candidates, will appeal to a wide swath of liberal and left-leaning students at GW that straddles the line between supporting Democratic candidates while also advocating for more progressive positions. The chapter’s leaders said they will advocate for expanded affordable housing options in Foggy Bottom, support local labor unions — including GW’s graduate student union — and back political candidates in the DMV area who align with DSA policies, such as affordable housing and health care, advocacy for a Palestinian state and increased taxes on wealthier Americans.
GW YDSA joins Socialist Action Initiative as the only other socialism-focused organization on campus but will join a slate of other left-leaning organizations on campus, including College Democrats, Students for Justice in Palestine and Immigrant Liberation Coalition. YDSA is an unofficial organization, as it is unable to become an official student organization after the University paused the official process for forming new student organizations over the summer for the 2025-26 school year.
GW YDSA, the chapter of the student wing underneath the national Democratic Socialists of America, had a chapter at GW from 2015 to 2021, according to now-inactive social media pages. During that time, the chapter focused on calls for the University to divest from companies tied to fossil fuels — which officials announced plans to do so by 2025 in June 2020 — promoted a previously unsuccessful graduate student union, which students failed to form in 2017, and D.C. affordable housing rights, according to the previous chapter’s social media posts.
Parker Brandenburg, a junior and one of the group’s leaders, said the group wants to become involved with the electoral wing of the Democratic Socialist Party and help support political candidates endorsed by the party, including Aparna Raj — a DSA member who is running for Ward 1 councilmember in 2026 and well-known candidates like Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).
“We want to be clear that we do love many of the current socialist organizations on campus, and we do not seek an oppositional relationship with them, and we have even been in contact with them, but we felt like the DSA has a very easily replicable model,” Brandenburg said.
Brandenburg said the chapter has a few specific initiatives they want to focus on as they establish themselves on campus, including phone banking for Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for New York City mayor and DSA member, before the city’s election in November and creating a campaign to establish a union for the workers at the Starbucks on campus.
The national DSA organization launched a campaign in early 2022 encouraging Starbucks locations to support Starbucks workers organizing in local stores, which they dubbed “Solidarity is Brewing.” Brandenburg said GW YDSA is connected with a local labor organizer who is helping them get connected with informative material that will allow the chapter to begin its campaign to unionize the two Starbucks locations on campus.
He also said the group is planning to work with D.C. DSA’s chapter and their “Stomp Out Slumlords” campaign in the city, aimed at fighting evictions and supporting tenants’ rights in the city. He said the campaign provides free reading materials to residents in the city about their rights as tenants.
“We are very excited to be on campus,” Brandenburg said. “We are very excited to promote democratic socialism, and we hope that people will show up to our meetings.”
Boyang Cai, a sophomore and member of YDSA’s executive board, said the group is promoting itself on campus with a strong social media presence — posting their own content as well as sharing other progressive content online — and a postering campaign across Foggy Bottom. Multiple YDSA posters are visible on light posts around campus, encouraging students to follow the group on social media.
He said the group will also introduce an initiative called “Elliott Watch,” which aims to inform students and community members about and protest controversial speakers and professors at the Elliott School of International Affairs who have “radically right-wing” views. Cai said he did not have any other information about the initiative, which they are still in planning.
“We want to make sure that Elliott is held responsible and people are well informed on who’s coming to Elliott, who’s talking to Elliott and are these people that we want to host at GW, as a community,” Cai said.
Ishan Parasher, a third-year student majoring in international affairs and one of GW YDSA’s leaders, said he and three other students opted to found the chapter because they all live in the New York City area and spent their summer working with Mamdani’s campaign and felt encouraged to join the organization.
“Just organizing students, GW, from across the left of the political spectrum to get involved in electoral work, labor organizing work because we felt that like in these trying times, that’s really important,” Parasher said.
Parasher said GW YDSA wants to collaborate with other organizations, like College Democrats and SAI, to advance left-leaning policies on campus, rather than competing with each other to be the main left-leaning student group at GW.
“I like having a foot in both worlds because sometimes I feel like the Democratic Party is not doing what it needs to be doing,” Parasher said.
On GW’s campus and within D.C., Parasher said GW YDSA will look to participate in a range of left-leaning political issues, including supporting progressive candidates in local elections, protesting for Palestinian self-determination and calling on the University to reject President Donald Trump’s policies targeting immigrants, especially in the wake of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at Circa in September.
“I think we’re still kind of discussing that right now, but those are definitely things that we want to be very involved in,” Parasher said.
Jasper Caro, another member of the YDSA executive board, said he helped bring the chapter to GW because he wanted to get involved in left-leaning electoral politics, but he felt there was no opportunity for students on campus to support progressive political candidates like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Mamdani because other socialist organizations on campus don’t focus on political campaigns.
“Only really there’s the center left candidates through GW Dems and whoever they choose to support, and I thought that was unsatisfactory for me,” Caro said.
