Apsara Iyer becomes first Indian-American student to be elected president of Harvard Law Review

NEW YORK: A second-year Indian-American student at Harvard Law School has been elected president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, becoming the first woman from the community to be named to the position in the prestigious publication’s 136-year history.

A report in The Harvard Crimson said on Monday that Apsara Iyer was elected the 137th president of the Harvard Law Review, which was founded in 1887 and is among the oldest student-run legal scholarship publications. Iyer said in The Crimson report that as Law Review president, she aims to “include more editors in the process of reviewing and selecting articles and upholding the publication’s reputation for “high-quality” work.”

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"I think that right now I’m just focused on making sure we keep the lights on and everything going,” Iyer said. Iyer’s distinguished predecessors in the role include Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and former president Barack Obama. The Crimson report said Iyer graduated from Yale in 2016 and received a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Math and Spanish.

Iyer’s immediate predecessor Priscila Coronado said the publication is “extremely lucky” to have Iyer at the helm. "Apsara has changed the lives of many editors for the better, and I know she will continue to do so," Coronado said. "From the start, she has impressed her fellow editors with her remarkable intelligence, thoughtfulness, warmth, and fierce advocacy."

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The Crimson said that Iyer’s interest in understanding the “value of cultural heritage” led her to work in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit which tracks stolen works of art and artifacts. Iyer worked in the office in 2018 before coming to the Law School, and took a leave of absence after her first year studying law to return to the role, it said.

The report added that Iyer joined the Harvard Law Review following a competitive process called “write-on,” where Harvard Law School students “rigorously fact-check a document and provide commentary on a recent State or Supreme Court Case." Iyer has previously been involved in the Law School’s Harvard Human Rights Journal and the National Security Journal and is also a member of the South Asian Law Students Association.