William Brevard Hand

William Brevard Hand was a United States federal judge in on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama. Hand was nominated by President Richard Nixon on 1971, to a seat vacated by Daniel H. Thomas.

Brevard Hand gained national attention when he issued a ruling that described secular humanism as a religion. The case involved a lawsuit against the Alabama school board claiming that history and social studies texts promoted secular humanism, and as such were in violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. Hand's ruling removed 44 texts from classes across the state for a number of weeks until the case was overturned without comment by the Court of Appeals. It appears that the case was brought in Hand's district after a school prayer case in Alabama in 1982.