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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a champion of liberal causes who shot to pop culture fame with her advocacy for women’s rights, helped create the Leadership Award in 2019, saying, He said he intends to celebrate “women who embody these qualities.”
But this year, four of the winners are men, including technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, who frequently launches harsh attacks on his perceived critics. Rupert Murdoch, the businessman whose empire created conservative media. and Michael Milken, who served nearly two years in prison as the face of corporate greed in the 1980s. In response, Justice Ginsburg’s family and close colleagues are demanding that her name be removed from the honor, commonly referred to as the RBG Award.
Her daughter, Columbia University law professor Jane C. Ginsburg, said in a statement that the selection of this year’s recipients is “an insult to my mother’s memory.”
“The judge’s family has made it clear that they do not support the use of their mother’s name to celebrate this year’s recipients, and that the judge’s family has no connection with or support these awards. “We want it to be,” Ginsburg said.
Trevor W. Morrison, a former dean of New York University School of Law and a former law clerk at the Justice Department, declined to identify the recipients because he thought it would undermine the spirit of the award, but all of them received the award. expressed concern that he was not a person. They reflected values of justice.
“Justice Ginsburg had an abiding commitment to careful and rigorous analysis and to engaging impartially with those with whom she disagreed,” said the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation, the organization that awards the award. He stated in a letter to. “It is difficult to see how the decision to award this year’s RBG Prize reflects an appreciation, or even recognition, of these aspects of the justice’s legacy.”
Honorees have included businesswoman Martha Stewart and actor Sylvester Stallone, and the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Leadership Award will be presented in April at the Library of Congress, which typically involves an awards ceremony and gala. Will be held.
The Opperman Foundation declined to comment on the backlash. However, in announcing the decision to recognize both men and women (until this year, the honor was called the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Women’s Leadership Award), it aims to uphold the values of gender equality. He said there was.
“Justice Ginsburg fought not just for women, but for everyone,” Julie Opperman, the foundation’s president, said in a statement. “Going forward, we will do our best to carry on Justice Ginsburg’s legacy to the fullest, honoring both the women and men who changed the world.”
Still, this year’s winners are in stark contrast to past winners, including Queen Elizabeth II, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, and actress and singer Barbra Streisand.
Some critics said some of the winners were diametrically opposed to the idea of justice.
“Justice Ginsburg, a self-proclaimed ‘flame feminist litigator,’ represented men and women who rebelled against gender norms and stereotypes as a means to advance gender equality,” says the author of Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth. said Shana Nizhnik. It’s Bader Ginsburg. “We honor Elon Musk, who uses his platform to promote anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQ sentiment, and Rupert Murdoch, who uses his great power to undermine democracy.” It taints what Justice Ginsburg has spent her career defending.”
Musk and Murdoch did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Justice carved out a unique path from the beginning.
When she entered Harvard Law School in 1956, she was one of nine women in a class of more than 500 people. In her first year, she was balancing her intense workload at law school with raising children and caring for her recently diagnosed husband. With cancer. She remained at the top of her class.
Despite this, she was still accused of usurping the status of men in class.
During her nearly 30 years on the court, she emerged as a progressive advocate for the winners in cases involving abortion, affirmative action, and gender equality. Even when she found herself in the minority, she did some of her most notable work in her opposition movement.
Justice Ginsburg’s son reflected on the award and pointed to the timing of the announcement.
“Today would have been Mom’s 91st birthday,” said James S. Ginsberg, founder of the classical music record company Cedille Records. “So it would be a perfect day to correct the record regarding this insult to her name and her legacy.”
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