CHSS Distinguished Alumni - History and Art History

Jeffrey Kerr

BA History '84

Jeff Kerr is chief legal officer and chief operating officer of the PETA Foundation. Over his 30-year tenure, he has built and led the world’s largest legal team working for animal liberation, and he is the longest-tenured legal head of an animal protection organization. His legal team is the only animal protection group named Best Legal Department by Corporate Counsel magazine and the second nonprofit to receive that honor. His many victories include striking down “ag-gag” laws that threaten to silence whistleblowers and investigators from documenting and exposing cruelty inside factory farms, slaughterhouses, and other facilities where animals are treated as commodities. His groundbreaking cases—including filing a copyright lawsuit on behalf of a macaque whose “monkey selfies” went viral and a lawsuit to end SeaWorld’s enslavement of orcas under the 13th Amendment—have made headlines around the world and sparked a global conversation about the legal rights of animals. 

While at George Mason University, he was a Weber Scholar, a two-year starting pitcher on the Patriots Baseball Team, and received the Scholar-Athlete Award, graduating with distinction (GPA equivalent to summa cum laude). After George Mason, Kerr graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law, which recognized his public service work with the prestigious Shaping Justice Award for Extraordinary Achievement, and named him as one of the Law School’s 100 graduates Changing the World.