Apsara Iyer becomes first Indian-American woman president of Harvard Law Review in 136 years
Apsara Iyer
Apsara Iyer became the first Indian-American woman to be elected president of Harvard Law Review in its 136-year history.
For those who don’t know, Apsara Iyer is 29-year-old Indian-American second year student at Harvard Law School, who has been investigating art crime and extradition since 2018, succeeds Priscila Coronado.
She has been elected president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, becoming the first woman from the community to hold the role of president of the esteemed Harvard Law Review in the 136-year history of the journal.
Harvard Crimson Report
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.
The Crimson report said Iyer graduated from Yale in 2016 and received a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Math and Spanish.
The Crimson said that Iyer’s interest in understanding the “value of cultural heritage” led her to pursue her Masters an MPhil at Oxford as a Clarendon Scholar and, in 2018 work in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit that tracks stolen works of art and artifacts.
At the ATU, she investigated art crime, coordinating with international and federal law-enforcement authorities to extradite more than 1,100 stolen works of art to 15 different countries.
In 2020, Iyer enrolled at Harvard Law School as a student in the International Human Rights Clinic and member of the South Asian Law Students Association.
Committed to fighting illicit antiquities trafficking, Iyer took a leave of absence from Harvard Law School in 2021-22 to return to the DA’s Office, where she worked on international antiquities trafficking investigation and rose to be the deputy of the ATU.
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 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.”
She further added by saying that right now I’m just focused on making sure we keep the lights on and everything going.
“Since joining the Law Review, I have been inspired by her (Priscila’s) skillful management, compassion, and capacity to build vibrant, inclusive communities. I am so grateful that we ‘Volume 137’ inherit her legacy, and I am honored to continue building on this important work over the next year,” Iyer said in a statement announcing her appointment.
Iyer’s eminent predecessors in the role include Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and former president Barack Obama.
Former President Barack Obama was the journal’s first Black president.
More to it, Iyer’s immediate predecessor Priscila Coronado said the publication is “extremely lucky” to have her at the forefront.
“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.”
