Herbert Brownell served as U.S. Attorney General under President Dwight Eisenhower from 1953 to 1957. In that capacity he was instrumental in shaping the Eisenhower administration’s positions on civil rights issues. He helped in the selection of Earl Warren to head the U.S. Supreme Court, spoke in support of integration of public schools during the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case, was responsible for President Eisenhower’s filling of judicial posts in the South with judges sensitive to civil rights matters and crafted an initial draft of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Brownell was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Nebraska and a Yale University law school graduate.