“I think that life would not be worth living without this freedom of self-expression.” —Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)

Consistent with the purpose of Jewish American Heritage Month, and in light of recent college campus protests and the depressing and dangerous rise of antisemitism in the country, it seems fitting to shout out the first Jewish American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court—Justice Louis Brandeis—and specifically his extraordinary concurring opinion in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927), which has had a profound, positive impact on the development of the First Amendment and free speech protection and thereby on democratic discussion and debate.