To help ensure that Brandeis continues to serve as the vibrant social justice incubator that launched her career trailblazing public-interest lawyer Linda Heller Kamm ’61 made a generous 50th Reunion gift to support the University and recognize budding activists.

While most of Kamm’s gift was directed to the Annual Fund, which supports the University’s greatest needs, a portion created the Linda Heller Kamm ’61 Prize. The $1,000 award will be presented annually to an undergraduate student who has demonstrated leadership in advocating for social justice.

“I want to see people pursue careers in public advocacy,” Kamm says of the prize. “In every era, there are important issues of social justice that need to be addressed, never more prominently than now. I hope that young people will fashion their careers so they find a meaningful home in the social justice movement.”

Kamm credits Brandeis with providing the foundation for a distinguished law career as notable for its impact on American society as for the volume of personal “firsts” she achieved. The first woman confirmed by the Senate as general counsel of a U.S. cabinet department (Transportation, 1977) and the first to reach partner at the nation’s second-oldest law firm (Foley & Lardner), she played a key role in advancing progressive social welfare and consumer protection legislation for more than four decades.

“I received a terrific education at Brandeis that gave outlet to the values of tikkun olam that are part of my core sense of self as an American Jew,” Kamm says.

A history major, she fondly remembers taking classes with faculty stars such as Frank Manuel, Herbert Marcuse, Irving Howe and Phillip Rahv. Outside the classroom, she served as editor of The Justice, and sometimes joined professors and fellow students carrying picket signs outside Woolworth’s in Boston to protest the company’s segregationist policies in the South.

“Having grown up in Miami Beach at a time when it was segregated, I was sensitive to the issue of civil rights, but it was at Brandeis that I found the tools to act on those concerns,” Kamm says. “Brandeis changed my life. I’m very grateful.”

Kamm attended Boston College Law School, which was welcoming to women and committed to the kind of public-interest law that she was interested in practicing.

In 1967, in the midst of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, she joined the U.S. Department of Housing, where she helped draft legislation that broke down the barriers that prevented millions of Americans from owning a home. Two years later, frustrated by the slow-moving federal bureaucracy, she went to work for the Democratic Study Group in the House of Representatives. The progressive organization championed a broad-based liberal agenda. Kamm focused on civil rights, health care and education legislation. She also staffed the changing of procedural rules so lawmakers could be held accountable for their voting records. As a result of the efforts of the Democratic Study Group, a number of recalcitrant committee chairmen were ousted, allowing important Great Society programs to reach the House floor and be passed into law.

Kamm continued her interest in House procedural reform as Counsel to the Committee on Committees, which was tasked with modernizing the legislative committee structure. She later served as general counsel to the House Committee on the Budget in the first years of the Congressional budget process. 

In 1977, Kamm was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as general counsel for the U.S. Department of Transportation, where she supervised a group of 400 lawyers. During her tenure, she oversaw issues related to economic regulation of the transportation sector. She also brought greater transparency to the regulatory process, spearheaded efforts to bring greater competition to the airline and railroad industries, and opened up opportunities for women in the Coast Guard and throughout the constituent agencies of the Transportation Department. Kamm was an early advocate of greater environmental awareness and was instrumental in efforts to reroute several major highway and pipeline projects to meet higher environmental standards.

After leaving government service, Kamm pursued her interest in the environment as national chair of Friends of the Earth, U.S. She also served as special counsel for Reproductive Rights for the Women’s Legal Defense Fund, pursued her legal career at a Washington, D.C.-based law firm, started a private investment firm, served as chair of Americans for Peace Now, and was a founding member of the board of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, which focuses on Jewish women’s history.

She continues her advocacy on behalf of social justice. “Nothing is more rewarding,” Kamm says, “than being an agent for social change.” She hopes that today’s students will take up the unfinished agenda.

To nominate a Brandeis student for the Linda Heller Kamm '61 Prize, click here.