Post-Graduation, Law School Student Government President Puts Forth a Constitution

Five months after winning the Harvard Law School student government presidency on a platform to rewrite the student government constitution and resign before Commencement, President-in-Absentia Matthew P. Gelfand, who graduated last spring, has completed a draft of the new constitution at last.

Gelfand and his vice president and current acting president Jordan B. Roberts hope to release a final draft of the constitution and ratify it before the October student government elections.

Gelfand wrote the constitution over the summer with input from a volunteer reform committee of current and just-graduated law students. In May, Gelfand administered a survey to the student body about the role the student government should play at the Law School. He said he incorporated much of what the respondents—nearly 400 students—expressed in their answers into the draft of the new constitution.

The constitution now frames the student government as one focused on representing students’ interests rather than on making decisions, though it would have a committee in charge of planning events and would continue to oversee the formation of student groups, among other tasks.

To reflect this ideological shift, Gelfand plans to rename the student government as the Harvard Law School Student Representative Board and formally make all students at the Law School members of the Student Representative Board.

“I don’t know the history of when all of these organizations started being called governments, but I don’t see student government at the Law School...as governing the student body,” said Gelfand, who is currently working in New York University’s general counsel’s office on a fellowship. “I think the best role for the organization is an advocacy one.”

Although the new constitution redefines the body’s principles, it does not address the role that student government should play in allocating funds to student organizations.

“That was by far the most controversial aspect of the survey,” Gelfand said. “It was just hard to come up with something that everybody would be happy with, and I couldn’t in good conscience put forward a constitution that had a specific procedure on that issue.”

Gelfand said he will leave this issue for the incoming student government officers to solve.

Last year, the student government constitution was amended so that the incoming president and vice president would take office on April 1 instead of at the end of the year to create a longer transition period. This amendment allowed Gelfand to run for president as a third-year student. Gelfand’s new draft of the constitution eliminates the possibility of graduating students running for office.

Rachna Shah, who acted as vice president of the student government from 2011 to 2012 and lost to Gelfand in the presidential election, which he won by a plurality, said that she was saddened that Gelfand “took the liberty” to extend the constitutional writing process over the summer and that a formal student government does not currently exist. Gelfand is not on campus and Roberts is acting as president—the sole member of student government, without any representatives or a board.

“Changing the name isn’t going to change the fact that there needs to be people who make decisions and can advocate on behalf of students on behalf of those decisions to the administration,” Shah said.

Roberts and Gelfand said that they have not received much feedback on the new draft of the constitution. Roberts said that half of the comments he has received are grammatical.

“Law students being law students, commas make a difference,” he said.

Law School Dean of Students Ellen M. Cosgrove said that few students seem interested in the new constitution or the upcoming elections.

“This is a non-issue for 99 percent of the student body,” Cosgrove said. “There’s a handful of students who were involved last year who were upset, but other than that...people don't seem very focused on that at all.”

—Staff writer Juliet R. Bailin can be reached at jbailin@college.harvard.edu.