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Section 6 Names Itself Air Tortan
In a year with few choices, Professor Jon Hanson’s 1L section picks one thing for itself — a tort pun that it carries for life.
Little about 1L year is up to 1Ls. They don’t pick their section, their professors, or their classes (except one spring elective). A seating chart determines their neighbors, and the Registrar assigns the WCC classrooms they rotate through every day. But one section gets a choice the rest don’t: Section 6 names itself.
The tradition comes from Professor Jon Hanson, who leads Section 6 and teaches its Torts class. Early in the fall, he puts up a slide showing a large 6 and the question “Who Are We?” Each year’s answer joins a lineage of names — Torts Illustrated last year, Torts R Us the year before, Tort Authority the year before that — that Sixers, as section members call themselves, carry long after 1L ends.
For Hanson, the naming ritual is about more than puns. “This is the first time at HLS that you actually have a say in your classroom experience and identity,” he said. “It’s meant to be a community reinforcement effort. And so we commit to this community by giving it our own name.”
This year, Sixers chose Air Tortan. The winning pitch made several arguments: Michael Jordan won six championships, and this is Section 6. Jordan wore No. 23, and this is Hanson’s 23rd year leading the section. And Jordan is considered by many to be basketball’s GOAT (the greatest of all time), and Hanson, the pitch argued, is HLS’s GOAT.
Air Tortan won by a large margin over Kangaroo Tort, Wii Torts, and Torter Joe’s, among others. “I did not know the word ‘tort’ could be put into so many different places,” said Kayla Jackson ’29.
Over the years, the pitches themselves have grown elaborate. This year, Sixers built slide decks and presented their arguments to the entire section. “I thought the slides and presentations were so funny,” said Carina Lim ’29. “It was nice to see everyone buy into the process and see their own creative ways of advocating for things.”
Then the section voted. Former Sixers — now 2Ls and 3Ls from Torts Illustrated and Torts R Us — returned as poll watchers to count the ballots. “Hanson does something that no one else will do during 1L: he makes you have fun,” said Seth Weprin ’28, a poll watcher and member of Torts Illustrated. “1L pressures can feel very isolating, and having something to rally around and be excited about is extremely refreshing.”
The naming ritual isn’t the only fun Hanson builds into 1L year. Section 6 starts each day with what Hanson calls “homeroom.” Sixers share photos from their week (“Sixer Selfies”), bring guests to class (“Friends & Family”), and check in on how they’re doing amid the grind of 1L. “I feel like the extra 20 minutes we have in homeroom every day goes a long way in making us all feel closer,” said Nick Liu ’29.
On naming day, homeroom gave way to the vote, and Sixers came together to choose who they are and will be. Sri Dasaraju ’29 said what stuck was seeing classmates go out of their way to be creative and “show up for Hanson — in the way that he clearly was showing up for us and has made clear that he would show up for us as a professor.”
For Hanson, that closeness is part of the point. Naming, he said, “gives an opportunity to build a kind of identity that they may otherwise not have without it.” And that identity doesn’t end with 1L. Alumni from years, even decades, earlier still introduce themselves by their section name when they return to campus.
Some of this year’s Sixers will one day do the same — as Air Tortan.
Editor’s Note: The author, Kelsey Carido ’28, a former Sixer, is a teaching fellow for Professor Jon Hanson’s Section 6. Editor-in-chief Samuel Kolitch ’28, also a former Sixer, served as a poll watcher for this year’s vote.