Prestigious US law journal appoints first Muslim president

BOSTON: The Harvard Law Review has elected its first Muslim president in its 134-year history. 

Hassaan Shahawy, 26, is a Los Angeles-born Egyptian-American.

The Harvard Law School student hopes his election represented “legal academia’s growing recognition of the importance of diversity, and perhaps its growing respect for other legal traditions.”

Former US President Barack Obama, named the journal’s first Black president in 1990, is among the legal and political lumanaries who have worked for the prestigious US journal. 

“Coming from a community routinely demonised in American public discourse, I hope this represents some progress, even if small and symbolic,” Shahawy, 26, told Reuters in an email.

Law reviews are staffed by the top students at US law schools, who are often recruited for judicial clerkships and other prestigious jobs in the profession.

Shahawy graduated Harvard as an undergraduate in 2016 with a degree in History and Near Eastern Studies. He then attended the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar to pursue a doctorate in Oriental Studies and studied Islamic law.