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Salah-Dean N. Satouri and Christopher E. Egi ’18 were elected Harvard Law School student government co-presidents on Tuesday night, marking a win for free speech activists at HLS.

Courtney E. Chrystal was elected as Director of Student Organizations in the only other contested race. Not enough candidates ran for the four 2L and four 3L Representative seats, and the student government declined to share vote counts for the races.

Amanda R. Kaplan, Mia C. Stone-Molloy, and Noah N. Thompson won seats as 2L representatives and Manav Mathews and Shahnur F. Said won as 3L representatives in their uncontested elections.

The election was a win for the Dissent Collective, an unrecognized student group of pro-Palestine activists that endorsed Satouri and Egi for co-presidents and Chrystal for director of student organizations.

During the race, Satouri and Egi made free expression a cornerstone of their campaign platform. Satouri wrote in his platform that as an Arab-American he is “fearful to embrace my identity, or even speak up for my community.”

“My status and place at HLS could be jeopardized by the things I say,” Egi wrote, referring to his status as an international student as the Trump administration moves to deport hundreds of students on visas for pro-Palestine activism.

Jacqueline Rayfield, a third-year law student who voted for Satouri and Egi, said that she thinks the duo will continue supporting free speech at HLS. “I have no doubt the two of them will be supporting other students,” she said.

Rayfield also said she thought it was “a bit out of character” for the Dissent Collective to endorse candidates, but that she was “happy to see them weighing in.”

Their platform demanded “clear policies” from the HLS administration to protect students from retaliation and called to create a Student Advocacy Council to assist students facing threats over their speech.

Egi — a tutor in Kirkland House — also led the student basketball team to victory last week in the “Courtroom Classic” against HLS faculty, dunking several times on the faculty before the score was settled in double overtime.

In an effort to allow more candidates to enter the race this year, the student government extended its applicant deadline by five days. But the extension did not attract enough candidates to create four contested elections. Last year, four candidates ran for both the 2L and 3L Representatives.

The Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Student Council has faced similar difficulties in filling vacancies on their Council last year, having to fill nine vacant positions last fall in special elections.

The HLS Student Government is expected to hold a special in the fall election to fill the vacant seats.

Stone-Molloy, who was elected as a 2L Representative, said that the drop-off in candidates could be attributed to concerns about the power of the HLS student government.

“People are frustrated by the fact that it seems like the administration doesn't listen to student government,” Stone-Molloy said, adding that candidate numbers may dwindle each year as students devote more time to clinical work.

When asked why she chose to continue her campaign for a second year, Stone-Molloy said that HLS students “have an obligation in every way we can to speak out and use this institution as a platform.”

The election comes on the heels of a public power struggle between the student government and HLS administration over the student government’s authority to administer referenda.

After the administration sent a scathing email to the entire student body criticizing what they called “needlessly divisive” language in a referendum on divestment from Israeli companies earlier this year, the student government chose to administer the referendum anyway in an independent special election.

Though the HLS administration offered to administer the candidate election this year, as it has in the past, the student government declined and administered the election separately.

“I think that the consistency between the referendum triggered by the student petition and now for spring elections, makes a ton of sense,” Chrystal said.

“I think having back to back elections that worked in different ways or looked different could have been unhelpful at worst and confusing at best,” she added.

—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.