Last year I wrote an essay for the website of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Brandeis University. You might find it of interest.

Louis Brandeis was born in 1856 and died in 1941, about two months before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the beginning of the United States’ active involvement in World War II. Seven years later, in 1948, after the end of the war, Brandeis University was founded. Why did they choose his name? Most everyone knows that he became the first Jewish justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, but why use his name? Here is my personal explanation for why choosing that name was such a good decision.

By all accounts, Louis Brandeis was a brilliant attorney and later a brilliant Supreme Court Justice. In particular, he took cases that dealt with finding justice for people in their everyday lives—for fair opportunities, for health care, for fair life insurance contracts, for fair business policies, and for fair labor laws. He was one of the first to provide pro-bono legal services for those in need. He used his brilliance to alleviate suffering and bring opportunities to others. And thus he became famous for practicing “social justice” at a time when those words were not used by everybody and every college and university.

To understand better what he did, I read descriptions of several of his cases and then read some of the actual cases. One of the most famous provides a concrete example of his quest to increase social justice—the case known as the “Brandeis Brief.”

In 1903, the state of Oregon passed a law limiting the amount of time that a woman could work in a factory or at hard labor to 10 hours per day. Yet a man named Muller, who owned a laundry in Portland, Oregon, continued to work women regularly over the 10-hour limit. He was charged and found guilty of a misdemeanor for overworking one particular woman. Though only a misdemeanor, perhaps in anger at being charged, he appealed the case to the Oregon Supreme Court and lost. In 1908, he and his attorneys then took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. They argued that this labor law was unconstitutional because it ran afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment by “depriving individuals of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” Signing any labor contract unfettered by such restrictions was viewed as part of their liberty.

Brandeis was brought on to argue for the state of Oregon. In preparing a brief on the case to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court, Brandeis gathered massive scientific evidence of the harm of extra labor. He argued that liberty to form a contract could not justify allowing injustice, suffering and unhealthy working conditions. His actual formal argument was indeed brief, but the supporting evidence he presented was long and exhaustive. In a 9 to 0 vote, the Supreme Court upheld the Oregon state law.

Why was this particular case so noteworthy? The “Brandeis Brief” was the first time ever in U.S. legal history in which scientific and social evidence was used to support a decision, rather than just relying on legal evidence. It opened a flood gate. “Brandeis Briefs” are now used all the time, including the famous case of Brown v. the Board of Education, which overturned the practice of segregation by default and separate but equal schools.

As a university, Brandeis University led the way in focusing our knowledge and expertise to increase social justice and to keep this idea and practice central in the minds of its students, faculty, and staff. So, it was indeed a good choice for our name. Let’s keep it going.

Malcolm (Mick) Watson, the George and Frances Levin Professor of Psychology, was appointed Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2010. Prior to his appointment as dean, Mick was twice chair of the Department of Psychology, where he has been actively teaching since 1977. Mick’s research and publications have been funded by grants from NIMH and NICHD. His research focuses on the antecedents of aggression and violence among children and adolescents. He was formerly a member of the MacArthur Network on Transitions in Early Childhood.