The word “Brandeis” always meant one thing to me: Brandeis Marin, from which I graduated in 2010. However, as a law student, I’ve gotten to know the other Brandeis over the last two years—the original Brandeis - Louis Brandeis, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939. Getting to know the other Brandeis has reinforced lessons about the law, our country, and being Jewish.
The word “Brandeis” always meant one thing to me: Brandeis Marin, from which I graduated in 2010. However, as a law student, I’ve gotten to know the other Brandeis over the last two years—the original Brandeis - Louis Brandeis, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939. Getting to know the other Brandeis has reinforced lessons about the law, our country, and being Jewish.
Brandeis lived a remarkable life full of “firsts.” His parents emigrated from Prague to the United States in the 1840s and settled in Kentucky, where he was born before the Civil War. After graduating first in his class at Harvard Law School, Brandeis became “the people’s attorney,” widely known for his pro bono work and his advocacy for labor rights at the turn of the twentieth century. He was nominated to the Supreme Court when he was 60. He became one of our most influential justices, developing the "right to be let alone," which forms the foundation of modern jurisprudence on speech and privacy.
Brandeis's nomination sparked such bitter opposition—much of it fueled by antisemitism—that he became the first Supreme Court nominee ever to face a public confirmation hearing. Fortunately, he prevailed and, in doing so, became our first Jewish justice. His achievement was a source of enormous pride for American Jews. “God be blest!” declared one person quoted by the New York Tribune. “In Russia, we dreamed of it. Here, it is a fact.” That fact paved the way for the seven Jewish justices following Louis Brandeis: Benjamin Cardozo, Felix Frankfurter, Arthur Goldberg, Abe Fortas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan.
I encountered Brandeis in the very first days of law school. His opinion in Erie Railroad Company v. Tompkins is taught to almost every law student in America during their first semester because it is the cornerstone of civil procedure. Like a good Brandeis Marin alumnus, I was interested in what he had to say about federal common law and who he was—as an attorney, an American, and a Jew. For the first time, I wondered why he had been chosen as our school’s namesake when it was founded in 1963.
As I got to know Brandeis the attorney, I reflected on the moral convictions that animated his perspective towards the law. For Brandeis, the law was a vehicle for social justice rather than merely a set of rules to be enforced. When thorny questions of constitutional meaning could be answered in multiple ways, Brandeis chose to answer them in the way he believed would do the most good for the most people. That approach was novel because it was righteous and because no one before Brandeis had articulated and followed it so prominently.
As I got to know Brandeis the American, I reflected on the link between his background and his commitment to public service. The United States offered his family a refuge from poverty and war abroad (as it has for many of our ancestors in the Brandeis Marin community and, indeed, for many other Americans). In return, he loved this country and proudly contributed to it. “[T]here is one feature in our ideals and practices which is peculiarly American,” he explained in an address delivered on July 4, 1915. “It is inclusive brotherhood.” Brandeis knew that to be true because his family had experienced it. And by devoting his life to the rights of others, he helped ensure that it would remain true.
As I got to know Brandeis the Jew, I reflected on his choices about living Jewishly. He was assimilated and disconnected for the first several decades of his life. But he discovered Zionism in his 50s and became one of its most prominent and ardent advocates, chairing the Provisional Executive Committee for Zionist Affairs during World War I and marshaling support for the Balfour Declaration in 1919. When Nazism took over Europe, Brandeis endorsed a campaign to smuggle Jews from Europe to Palestine and pled with President Roosevelt to open the gates of the United States to more Jewish refugees. Throughout his life, he also explicitly cited Judaism as the source of his commitment to social justice.
I’ve always loved Brandeis Marin because of its extraordinary teachers, its rich Jewish education, and its warm and vibrant community. But now, I have another reason to love it—because of its name.
Ari Goldstein graduated from Brandeis Marin in 2010, Marin Academy in 2014, and Georgetown University in 2018. He worked for four years in the museum field and then returned to school. Today, he’s a J.D. candidate at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and an M.B.A. candidate at the Wharton School.