Following January 6, 2021, and the threat of further attacks on our democracy, a few of our founders assembled a “task force of students” in Arizona as a localized effort to protect and expand student rights and representation.

Our goal was to center students in the fight for grassroots pro‑democracy reforms, enact systemic solutions that would prevent another January 6th from happening, and pull our wider republic back from the footsteps of fascism.

Our initial student‑representation work led to several local victories, including a student constitution expanding youth power and rights, as well as town halls to hold public school board members accountable.

As the threats to democracy evolved in 2022, so did our mission. In Arizona, we organized students and won protections for voting rights and the state’s referendum process — kickstarting our voting rights program. We also expanded our efforts past Arizona to California, New York, and nationally to grow our network of students empowered to defend democracy.

In 2023, we relocated to Washington, DC, grew our team, and launched new campaigns to protect our rights from an Article V convention, bring students together in campus democracy coalitions to continue advancing student rights and critical democracy reforms, and teach student activists how to leverage Freedom of Information laws to hold power accountable while keeping themselves safe.

Less than 12 days after Election Day 2024, we rapidly convened young civil and voting rights leaders in DC to chart our path forward as a democracy movement. Together, we laid the groundwork for organizing for our freedoms, resisting autocratic attacks like Project 2025, fighting to protect DC’s autonomy, and envisioning an inclusive democracy for a post‑Trump era. Our conclusion was clear: to successfully organize under autocracy, we need a student movement that transcends person and party.

Since Trump’s inauguration in 2025, we have refocused our efforts on training and organizing students en masse to resist the Administration’s attacks on our campuses and wider communities.

Read more about our post-election work to organize students against authoritarianism and for a more inclusive democracy!