Erasure

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis was the first Jewish person to be nominated to serve on the highest court in the United States. Confirmed in 1916, he served until retiring in 1939 and is considered to have been one of the greatest defenders of the right to free speech and the right to privacy to have served on the Court.

Although his opinions in several cases were dissents, they provided the reasoning that later Courts would use in writing opinions where Brandeis' original ideas were now held by a majority. It would probably be interesting to hear Justice Brandeis' opinion of the NSA phone-tapping efforts. Since he was also opposed to several of the Roosevelt administration's New Deal innovations, and wrote opinions limiting presidential discretion and authority, it would probably also be interesting to hear what he thought of the plethora of executive orders and signing statements issued by the current president and his predecessor.

In any event, Justice Brandeis is highly regarded for his courage, ethical standards and insightful mind. The university that bears his name has shown itself utterly unworthy of the honor and should rescind its use of that name as swiftly as the chisels can manage.