Apsara Iyer becomes the first Indian woman president of Harvard Law Review

In February first generation IndianAmerican Apsara Iyer claimed another milestone for the Indian community already standing on an Everest of spelling bee wins and so many more exemplary academic achievementsmdashshe became the first Indian woman to be appointed president of the prestigious Harvard Law ReviewThe journal is published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School and is said to stand first among 143 student law journals for its impact factor It is among the oldest studentrun legal scholarship publications Iyer is the first Indian woman in its 136year history to hold the position and follows such prestigious names as former US president Barack Obama and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader GinsburgPudhil station White HouseIyer grew up in Indiana born to Tamil parents raised in Wadala the couplersquos parents had moved to Indiarsquos financial capital in the 1930s and rsquo40s from Kerala The 29yearold joined the prestigious law school after fourandahalfyears at the Antiquities Trafficking Unit in the Manhattan District Attorneyrsquos Office where she helped restore over 1100 antiquities to 15 different countries ldquoSeveral of these objects were from Indiardquo she says over email ldquoand I was the lead analyst on many investigations concerning trafficking networks operating in India and Southeast AsiardquoApsara IyerIyerrsquos interest in history and antiquities was seeded in high school when she worked on an archaeological excavation site in Peru ldquoI began to pursue my studies at Yale with a research focus on the value of cultural heritagerdquo she says ldquoDuring one of my field research projects in India I had the opportunity to visit a site that had been the victim of looting I distinctly remember that while I was at the site someone asked me lsquoWhat are you going to do about thisrsquo This wakeup call led me to work in law to address the issue of antiquities traffickingrdquo Iyer graduated from Yale majoring in Math Economics and Spanish and went on to pursue an MPhil in Economics from the University of OxfordThe destruction of cultural heritage and its effect on people occupied her mind ldquoThis kind of destructionmdashby looting or other meansmdashis an attack on the identity of a community and in turn our common humanity Cultural heritage represents a shared history roots and beliefsrdquo Her favourite memories from working at the District Attorneyrsquos Office surround organising repatriation ceremonies to return stolen objects to their lawful owners ldquoEach repatriation ceremony whether with India or Iraq or Greece is incredibly movingrdquo she says ldquoAlthough the return of the objects will not recover their original archaeological context the repatriation allows for a piece of history to journey back to its lawful ownerrdquo One case of satisfying avengement must have been that of hedge fund billionaire and philanthropist Michael Steinhardt In 2021 he surrendered 70 million of stolen antiquities and was banned for a lifetime on acquiring antiquities Iyer worked on the case in which 180 antiquities stolen from 11 countries were returned to rightful owners in Bulgaria Egypt Greece Iraq Israel Italy JordanLebanon Libya Syria and TurkeyAmong the first cases she was assigned at the DArsquos office was the one involving a Nataraja stolen from the Punnainallur Temple in Thanjavur ldquoOver the next three yearsrdquo she says ldquoI worked tirelessly with the lead prosecutor to uncover new evidence witnesses and investigative leads Our work singlehandedly resulted in the return of the Nataraja to the Government of India In such cases I have seen firsthand how the communities maintained hope and prayed for years that the relics will returnrdquoAnother inspiring moment was being able to work on a case involving a mother goddess statue stolen from a site in Udaipur that she had visited in 2013 for research as a student at YaleldquoI photographed the temple posttheftrdquo she says ldquoand met with local witnesses who still remembered the statues Finally in 2022 nine years later we were able to recover one idol and it is awaiting repatriation to IndiardquoOn the personal front Iyer enjoys looking at art and boxing a sport she trained in for a charity event while living in New YorkAlso ReadFour trailblazing women on sexuality desire and bodily autonomy