Founding , a building on campus|left
Middlesex University was a medical school located in Waltham, Massachusetts, that was at the time the only medical school in Massachusetts that did not impose a
quota on Jews. The founder, John Hall Smith, died in 1944. Smith's will stipulated that the school should go to any group willing to use it to establish a non-sectarian university. Within two years, Middlesex University was on the brink of financial collapse. The school had not been able to secure accreditation by the
American Medical Association, which Smith partially attributed to institutional antisemitism in the American Medical Association. Smith's son, C. Ruggles Smith, was desperate for a way to save something of Middlesex University. He learned of a New York committee headed by
Israel Goldstein that was seeking a campus to establish a Jewish-sponsored secular university. Smith approached Goldstein with a proposal to give the Middlesex campus and charter to Goldstein's committee, in the hope that his committee might "possess the apparent ability to reestablish the School of Medicine on an approved basis." While Goldstein was concerned about being saddled with a failing medical school, he was excited about the opportunity to secure a "campus not far from New York, the premier Jewish community in the world, and only from Boston, one of the important Jewish population centers." Alpert had worked his way through
Boston University School of Law and co-founded the firm of Alpert and Alpert. Alpert's firm had a long association with the
New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, of which he was to become president from 1956 to 1961. Alpert was chairman of Brandeis from 1946 to 1954, and a trustee from 1946 until his death. Einstein believed the university would attract the best young people in all fields, satisfying a real need. In March 1946, Goldstein said the foundation had raised $10 million that it would use to open the school by the following year. The foundation purchased Middlesex University's land and buildings for two million dollars. The new school would be a Jewish-sponsored secular university open to students and faculty of all races and religions. Einstein threatened to sever ties with the foundation on September 2, 1946. Believing the venture could not succeed without Einstein, Goldstein quickly agreed to resign, and Einstein recanted. Goldstein said that, despite his resignation, he would continue to solicit donations for the foundation. By the end of 1946, the foundation said it had raised over five hundred thousand dollars, and two months later it said it had doubled that amount. The Brandeis board felt it was in no position to make the investment in the medical school that would enable it to receive accreditation, and closed it in 1947. Einstein wanted Middlesex University's veterinary school's standards to be improved before expanding to the school, In early June 1947, Einstein made a final break with the foundation. The veterinary school was closed, despite students' protests and demonstrations. someone that Alpert had characterized as "a man utterly alien to American principles of democracy, tarred with the Communist brush." Alpert also criticized Lazrus' lack of fundraising success and Nathan's failure to organize an educational advisory committee.
Opening On April 26, 1948, Brandeis University announced that
Abram L. Sachar, chairman of the National Hillel Commission, had been chosen as Brandeis' first president. Sachar promised that Brandeis University would follow Louis Brandeis' principles of academic integrity and service. He also promised that students and faculty would never be chosen based on quotas of "genetic or ethnic or economic distribution" because choices based on quotas "are based on the assumption that there are standard population strains, on the belief that the ideal American must look and act like an eighteenth-century Puritan, that the melting pot of America must mold all who live here into such a pattern." Students who applied to the school were not asked their race, religion, or ancestry. Brandeis decided its undergraduate instruction would not be organized with traditional departments or divisions, and instead it would have four schools, namely the School of General Studies, the School of Social Studies, the School of Humanities, and the School of Science. On October 14, 1948, They were taught by thirteen instructors Students came from 28 states and six foreign countries. The library was formerly a barn, students slept in the former medical school building and two army barracks, and the cafeteria was where the medical school had stored cadavers.
Early years Eleanor Roosevelt joined the board of trustees in 1949.
Joseph M. Proskauer joined the board in 1950. Construction of on-campus dormitories began in March 1950 with the goal of ninety percent of students living on campus. Construction on an athletic field began in May 1950. Brandeis' football team played its first game on September 30, 1950, a road win against
Maine Maritime Academy. Its first varsity game was on September 29, 1951, with a home loss against the
University of New Hampshire. Its first varsity win was a score of 24–13, an away game at
Hofstra University on October 6, 1951. Brandeis Stadium opened in time for a home win against
American International College on October 13, 1951. During its first season, the football team won four and lost four games during the regular season and then lost to the
University of Tampa in a post-season game. Construction of a 2,000-seat amphitheater began in February 1952. The state legislature of Massachusetts authorized Brandeis to award master's degrees, doctorate degrees, and honorary degrees in 1951.
Leonard Bernstein, director of Brandeis' Center of Creative Arts, planned
a four-day ceremony to commemorate the occasion. Eleanor Roosevelt and Massachusetts governor
Paul A. Dever spoke at the commencement ceremony. In 1953, Einstein declined the offer of an
honorary degree from Brandeis, writing to Brandeis President
Abram L. Sachar that "what happened in the stage of preparation of Brandeis University was not at all caused by a misunderstanding and cannot be made good any more." Instead, at the graduation ceremony for Brandeis' second graduating class of 108 students, individuals given Brandeis' first honorary degrees included Illinois senator
Paul H. Douglas, Rabbi
Louis Ginzberg, and Alpert. 1953 also saw the creation of the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, one of the first academic programs in Jewish Studies at an American university. Among the founders were distinguished emigre scholars Alexander Altmann, Nathan Glatzer, and
Simon Rawidowicz. Brandeis' graduate program, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, opened in fall 1954. In the same year, Brandeis became fully accredited, joining the
New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. Designed by the architectural firm of
Harrison & Abramovitz, the three chapels surrounded a natural pond. Dedicated on September 11, 1955, the Jewish chapel was named in memory of Mendel and Leah Berlin, parents of Boston surgeon David D. Berlin. Named in memory of Supreme Court Justice
John Marshall Harlan, the Protestant chapel was dedicated on October 30, 1955. The building, named the Bertha and Jacob Goldfarb Library in his honor, was designed by
Harrison & Abramovitz, a firm which designed many campus buildings in the 1950s. Berks' wife Dorothy had been the Justice's personal assistant for 39 years and wore his actual robes to model the statue.
Jordan boycotted Brandeis University, announcing that it would not issue currency permits to Jordanian students at Brandeis. Beginning in fall 1959, singer
Eddie Fisher established two scholarships at the university, one for classical and one for popular music, in the name of
Eddie Cantor. On May 16, 1960, Brandeis announced it would discontinue its varsity football team. President
Abram Sachar pointed to the cost of the team as one reason for the decision. Brandeis said the discontinuation of varsity football would allow it to expand intercollegiate activity in other sports.
1960s: Countercultural epicenter Brandeis became an epicenter of radical student activism and
anti–Vietnam War protests during the
counterculture of the 1960s. It was the National Student Strike Information Center during the
student strike of 1970. The students' demands included the hiring of more Black faculty members, increasing Black student enrollment from four percent to ten percent of the student body, an increase in scholarships for Black students, and establishment of an independent department of African American studies. In addition, more than 200 white students staged a
sit-in in the lobby of the administration building. On January 18, the black students exited Ford Hall, ending the eleven-day occupation of the building. There had been no violence or destruction of property during the occupation, and Brandeis gave the students amnesty for their actions. Ford Hall was demolished in August 2000 to make way for the Shapiro Campus Center, which was opened and dedicated October 3, 2002.
Late 20th century: Institutional crisis In the late 1970s, Brandeis faced a major financial crisis as donations from American Jews decreased as they turned toward support for
Israel and other causes.
21st century In January 2007, former
President Jimmy Carter spoke at the university against the backdrop of controversy over his book
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid after being invited by students despite some campus opposition. His speech was followed by a rebuttal remarks from
Alan Dershowitz. Later that spring
Norman Finkelstein and
Daniel Pipes were invited to speak on campus by separate student groups. In December 2007 former president
Bill Clinton spoke on campus and launched the Eli J. Segal Leadership program. In 2009, the university faced fundraising challenges in part due to donors affected by the
Madoff investment scandal and the
2008 financial crisis, leading to the January 2009 announcement that it planned to close the
Rose Art Museum and sell the artwork. A university committee later recommended that the museum stay open and the university then said in 2010 it would seek to raise money by lending out the art, and eventually settled a related lawsuit in June 2011 with the museum remaining open.) In 2014, Brandeis announced it would offer an honorary doctorate to
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, "a staunch supporter of
women's rights", and an outspoken campaigner against
female genital mutilation,
honor killing, and
Islamic extremism in general. After complaints from the
Council on American–Islamic Relations and internal consultation with faculty and students, Brandeis publicly withdrew the offer, citing that Ali's statements condemning Islam were "inconsistent with the University's core values". 87 out of 511 faculty members at Brandeis signed a letter to the university president. The university announced that the decision to withdraw the invitation was made after a discussion between Ayaan Ali and President Frederick Lawrence, stating that "She is a compelling public figure and advocate for women's rights ... but we cannot overlook certain of her past statements". According to Brandeis, Ali was never invited to speak at commencement, she was only invited to receive an honorary degree. Ali said that Brandeis' decision surprised her because Brandeis said they did not know what she had said in the past even though her speeches were publicly available on the internet, calling it a "feeble excuse". She stated that the university's decision was motivated in part by fear of offending Muslims. While some commentators such as Abdullah Antepli, the Muslim chaplain and adjunct faculty of Islamic Studies at Duke University, applauded the decision and warned against "making renegades into heroes," other academic commentators such as the University of Chicago's
Jerry Coyne and the George Mason University Foundation Professor
David Bernstein criticized the decision as an attack on academic values such as freedom of inquiry and intellectual independence from religious pressure groups. In 2017, a planned student performance of a play called "Buyer Beware" about
Lenny Bruce by Brandeis alumnus
Michael Weller was first postponed over concerns about racism, then prompting the playwright to withdraw the play in favor of staging it elsewhere. The university adopted official free expression principles in 2018. A new presidential taskforce to review the university's free expression guidelines was set up in 2024. In 2021, a student group's "oppressive language list" was removed from the university website after it got outside attention for its suggestion to avoid the term "trigger warning." President Ronald Liebowitz announced his resignation in September 2024 following a faculty no-confidence vote amid budget concerns and controversy over the handling of pro-Palestinian protests on campus -- the fifth university president to step down that year at least in part in connection with the
2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, according to the
New York Times.
Presidents The presidents of Brandeis University include: ==Campus==