After the RBG Awards Cut to Musk and Murdoch, Justice Ginsburg’s family objects

When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal advocate whose advocacy for women’s rights has catapulted her into pop culture, helped establish a leadership award in 2019, she said she intended to “honor women who exemplify human qualities of empathy and humility’.

But this year, four of the recipients are men, including Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur who regularly launches rants at perceived critics; Rupert Murdoch, the business magnate whose empire gave rise to a conservative media; and Michael Milken, the face of corporate greed in the 1980s, who served nearly two years in prison. It has prompted relatives and close colleagues of Justice Ginsburg to demand that her name be removed from the honor, commonly called the RBG Award.

In a statement, her daughter, Jane C. Ginsburg, a law professor at Columbia University, said this year’s choice of winners was “an insult to the memory of our mother.”

“The judge’s family would like to make it clear that they are not in favor of using their mother’s name to celebrate this year’s list of winners, and that the judge’s family has no connection with these awards and these nor does it endorse,” Ms. Ginsburg said.

Even as he declined to name any of the recipients who he believed undermined the spirit of the award, Trevor W. Morrison, former dean of the New York University School of Law and one of the former law clerks, expressed concern about the fact that not all of them reflected the values ​​of justice.

“Justice Ginsburg had an abiding commitment to careful, rigorous analysis and to fair dealing with those with opposing views,” he said in a letter addressed to the awards organization, the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation. “It is difficult to see how the decision to award this year’s RBG Award reflects any appreciation for – or even awareness of – these dimensions of the justice legacy.”

Recipients, who also include businesswoman Martha Stewart and actor Sylvester Stallone, will receive the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Leadership Award in April at the Library of Congress, where a ceremony and gala usually take place.

The Opperman Foundation declined to comment on the setback. But when announcing his decision to recognize both men and women — until this year the honor was called the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award — it said it sought to uphold the value of gender equality.

“Justice Ginsburg fought not just for women, but for everyone,” Julie Opperman, the foundation’s president, said in a statement. “To embrace the fullness of Justice Ginsburg’s legacy, going forward we will honor both women and men who have changed the world by doing what they do best.”

Still, this year’s winners are in stark contrast to previous recipients, including Queen Elizabeth II, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg and actress and singer Barbra Streisand.

Some critics said some of the awards went against what justice stood for.

“Justice Ginsburg, who described herself as a ‘flaming feminist litigator,’ represented both men and women who defied gender norms and stereotypes as a way to advance gender equality,” said Shana Knizhnik, author of “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” “Honouring Elon Musk, who uses his platform to promote anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQ sentiment, and Rupert Murdoch, who has used his enormous power to undermine democracy, dishonors what Justice Ginsburg has spent her career standing for.”

Mr Musk and Mr Murdoch did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The judiciary has followed a distinctive 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. In her first year, she balanced the intensity of law school with raising a child and caring for her husband, who had recently been diagnosed with a cancer disease. with cancer. She remained at the top of the class.

Nevertheless, she was still punished for taking a man’s place in class.

During the nearly three decades she spent on the court, she emerged as a progressive voice, finding herself on the winning side 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 the field of dissent.

Reflecting on the awards, Justice Ginsburg’s son pointed to the timing of the announcement.

“Today would have been Mom’s 91st birthday,” said James S. Ginsburg, the founder of Cedille Records, a classical music record company. “So it would be a perfect day to right the reputation of this insult to her name and legacy.”