The family of Ruth Bader Ginsburg announced that this year’s winners of an award in honor of the late Supreme Court Justice did not reflect her values and were a “betrayal of the justice’s legacy.”
The Dwight D. Opperman Foundation canceled the 2024 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Leadership Award gala after backlash from family and friends of the late justice when the award meant to recognize prominent women was given to billionaire Elon Musk and media magnate Rupert Murdoch, among others.
“This year we selected leaders in different fields. We honored men for the first time. We thought RBG’s teachings regarding EQUALITY should be practiced. We did not consider politics,” Opperman said in a statement through a spokesperson Monday, according to The Hill.
“Instead, we focused on leaders, who, in their own way, have made significant contributions to society,” she added.
Actor Sylvester Stallone and financier Michael Milken, who was convicted of securities violations but later pardoned by then-President Donald Trump, were also on the list of award recipients which this year included only one woman – Martha Stewart.
Ginsburg’s family slammed the choices as a “betrayal” to the justice who was 87 when she passed away in 2020 after serving nearly three decades on the high court.
“The decision of the Opperman Foundation to bestow the RBG Women’s Leadership Award on this year’s slate of awardees is an affront to the memory of our mother and grandmother, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” Ginsburg’s children and grandchildren said in a statement last week.
“As it was originally conceived and named, the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award honored that legacy by recognizing “an extraordinary woman who has exercised a positive and notable influence on society and served as an exemplary role model in both principles and practice.” This year, the Opperman Foundation has strayed far from the original mission of the award and from what Justice Ginsburg stood for,” the family said.
“The Justice’s family wish to make clear that they do not support using their mother’s name to celebrate this year’s slate of awardees, and that the Justice’s family has no affiliation with and does not endorse this award,” the statement concluded.
In announcing the cancelation of this year’s event, the Opperman Foundation chair noted that the organization would be making a decision about how to “proceed in the future.”
“It is important to note, that the last thing we intended was to offend the family and friends of RBG. Our purpose was only to remember her and to honor her leadership,” Opperman said.
“Over the next several months the Foundation will reconsider its mission and make a judgment about how or whether to proceed in the future,” the statement added.“We will consider whether there is a way forward that can bring honor and joy to the process with a minimum amount of controversy.”
