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The Harvard Law School Student Government has scheduled a student-wide vote in March on a referendum to divest from companies involved in Israel’s war in Gaza.

The referendum, which will be administered to the student body from March 11 to March 13, urges students to vote in favor of Harvard’s divestment from companies “aiding violations of international humanitarian law” — including those that have provided support for the war in Gaza, which the referendum refers to as a genocide.

More than 300 HLS students signed a petition in favor of holding the referendum earlier this month, pushing it over the threshold that requires the student government to bring it to a vote before the full student body.

If the divestment referendum moves forward, it will represent a success for the student government, which clashed with HLS administrators over a separate referendum that the student government first attempted to schedule last fall.

The referendum — which condemned the library bans doled out to students following a series of study-ins at Langdell Library — was repeatedly delayed amid a dispute with the Law School Dean of Students Office.

Dean of Students Stephen L. Ball first hit pause on the library ban referendum after the student government announced a voting date without consulting his office. No voting date is currently set.

The student government presidents, John M. Fossum and Déborah V. Aléxis, declined to state whether they had consulted the DSO before setting a voting date. HLS spokesperson Jeff Neal declined to comment on whether Law School administrators would prevent the referendum from proceeding as planned.

Earlier this month, the HLS Student Council — a group of 20 elected representatives within the student government — passed a resolution claiming that the student government has historically worked with the HLS administration to “co-facilitate” elections, but that the administration “refused” to administer the library ban referendum.

The resolution affirmed the student government’s “constitutional authority” to administer elections and referenda independent of HLS administration.

In a statement to The Crimson, Fossum and Aléxis wrote that “the student petitioners who brought this referendum used the process that the University provides through the Student Government Constitution.”

“The Election Commission is empowered by our Constitution to administer special and spring elections,” they wrote.

Public campaigning for the divestment referendum — which includes public social media posts and the distribution of printed materials — began Wednesday, and will continue until March 10, the day before the ballot is released.

Harvard has relinquished controversial investments in the past — but the HLS referendum stands little chance of altering the University’s stance against divestment from Israeli companies.

In 1986, Harvard began to selectively withdraw investments from apartheid-era South Africa, though the University never completely divested. In 1990, Harvard completely divested from tobacco stocks.

In 2021, Harvard announced that it would allow its investments in fossil fuels to expire — years after the HLS student body voted in a 2013 referendum to urge the University to divest from fossil fuel companies. .

But Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 has staunchly refused to divest from Israel. In October, Garber told members of Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, an unrecognized group of activist organizations, that he would not review Harvard’s investments for ties to human rights violations.

Harvard “will not use its endowment funds to endorse a contested view on a complex issue that deeply divides our community,” Garber wrote in an Oct. 3 email to HOOP.

Reilly A. Johnson, a first-year law student who plans to campaign for the referendum, said she was excited to “talk to my fellow classmates about why it’s important that Harvard divest.”

“We know that Harvard can do it,” Johnson added.

Johnson said that she “cannot predict” how the administration might respond.

“But I am excited and I’m confident that we are going to have the referendum,” she said.

—Staff writer Caroline G. Hennigan can be reached at caroline.hennigan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @cghennigan.

—Staff writer Bradford D. Kimball can be reached at bradford.kimball@thecrimson.com.