William J. Brennan Jr.

William Joseph Brennan Jr. served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1956 to 1990, making him the eighth-longest-serving justice in the Court’s history. He was a leading figure on the Court’s liberal wing. His influence came from his skill in crafting opinions and negotiating for votes, which made him one of the Court’s most powerful members.

Brennan was born on April 25, 1906, in Newark, New Jersey, the second of eight children. His parents, William and Agnes McDermott Brennan, were Irish immigrants who met in the United States, both originally from County Roscommon. His father, a metal polisher with little formal education, later became Newark’s Commissioner of Public Safety from 1927 to 1930. Brennan attended Newark public schools and graduated from Barringer High School in 1924. He was accepted to Princeton but enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania at his father’s request. After a year in the College of Arts & Sciences, he transferred to the Wharton School, earning a Bachelor of Arts in economics, cum laude, in 1928. He joined the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He then attended Harvard Law School, where he worked with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, and graduated near the top of his class with a Bachelor of Laws in 1931. At age 21, he married Marjorie Leonard, whom he met in high school; they had three children: William III, Nancy, and Hugh.

After law school, Brennan practiced labor law at the New Jersey firm Pitney Hardin. During World War II, he was commissioned as a major in the Army in March 1942, serving in the ordnance division and earning the Legion of Merit. He left the Army as a colonel in 1946, after a stint as a staff member for the U.S. Undersecretary of War. He returned to Pitney Hardin, where his partners added his name to the firm. In 1949, New Jersey Governor Alfred E. Driscoll appointed him to the state’s Superior Court, and in 1951 to the New Jersey Supreme Court.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave Brennan a recess appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court on October 15, 1956, just before the presidential election, and he was sworn in the next day. Eisenhower’s advisers thought a Catholic Democrat from the Northeast would help win over key voters in the Republican president’s reelection campaign. Cardinal Francis Spellman had urged Eisenhower to appoint a Catholic. Brennan met three criteria: lower court experience, relative youth and good health, and Catholicism. He came to the attention of Attorney General Herbert Brownell after substituting for New Jersey Chief Justice Arthur Vanderbilt at a conference; Brownell thought Brennan’s speech suggested a conservative bent, especially on criminal matters. The nomination, formally submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 14, 1957, faced some controversy. The National Liberal League opposed him for being Catholic, fearing he would follow Church law over the Constitution. Senator Joseph McCarthy objected to Brennan’s description of overzealous anti-Communist investigations as “witch-hunts.” At his confirmation hearing, Brennan defended himself against McCarthy’s attacks and said he would rule only on the Constitution, not Church law. He was confirmed by a near-unanimous vote, with only McCarthy voting against him.

On the Court, Brennan held progressive views: he opposed the death penalty, dissenting in more than 1,400 cases where the Court refused to review a death sentence, and supported abortion and gay rights. He wrote major opinions, including *Baker v. Carr* (1962), which made legislative apportionment a justiciable issue; *New York Times Co. v. Sullivan* (1964), requiring “actual malice” in libel suits by public officials; *Eisenstadt v. Baird* (1972), establishing a right to contraception for unmarried people; and *Craig v. Boren* (1976), which applied heightened scrutiny to sex-based discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause. Brennan retired in 1990 and was succeeded by David Souter. Justice Antonin Scalia, who served with Brennan from 1986 to 1990, called him “probably the most influential Justice of the [20th] century.” Brennan died on July 24, 1997.