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Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s family finds fault with an award given in her name to Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch

Angry Bear | March 15, 2024 6:11 pm

Journalism

Politics

There has to be more deserving unrecognized people worthy of recognition running around today? Why would the Opperman Foundation believe Musk and Murdoch are deserving of such an award given in Justice Ruth Ginsburg’s name?

CNN, Tierney Sneed

The family of the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wants her name pulled off an award after the foundation in charge of doling it out named SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch among this year’s recipients. Ginsburg’s family objected to the Opperman’s Foundation selection.

“In a statement obtained by CNN, Ginsburg’s family said that, with the selection of this year’s honorees, the Opperman Foundation had ‘strayed far from the original mission of the award and from what Justice Ginsburg stood for.’

Ginsburg’s family said they were not affiliated with the award and called the choices of honorees this year an “affront” to the justice’s memory.

They added that the family supports a letter by Trevor Morrison, a former Ginsburg clerk. ‘(N)ot everyone on this year’s slate reflects the values to which the Justice dedicated her career, and for which the Justice is rightly revered around the world,’ the letter states.

Ginsburg, a longtime liberal member of the high court who died at age 87 in 2020, consistently delivered progressive votes on major social issues, including abortion rights, same-sex marriage and immigration.

In addition to Musk and Murdoch, lifestyle icon Martha Stewart, actor Sylvester Stallone and financier Michael Milken are also recipients of the award.”

9 Comments

Fred C. Dobbs says:

March 17, 2024 at 11:29 am

After R.B.G. Awards Go to Musk and Murdoch, Justice Ginsburg’s Family Objects

NY Times – March 15

When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a champion of liberal causes whose advocacy of women’s rights catapulted her to pop culture fame, helped establish a leadership award in 2019, she said she intended to celebrate “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 frequently lobs tirades at perceived critics; Rupert Murdoch, the business magnate whose empire gave rise to conservative media; and Michael Milken, the face of corporate greed in the 1980s who served nearly two years in prison. It has prompted family members and close colleagues of Justice Ginsburg to demand that her name be removed from the honor, commonly called the R.B.G. Award.

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

The Opperman Foundation declined to comment on the pushback. But in announcing its 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 only for women but for everyone,” Julie Opperman, the chairwoman of the foundation, said in a statement. “Going forward, to embrace the fullness of Justice Ginsburg’s legacy, we honor both women and men who have changed the world by doing what they do best.” …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  March 17, 2024 at 11:36 am
  
  And the award also goes to Sly Stallone, & Martha Stewart!
  - Joel Eissenberg says:
    
    March 17, 2024 at 11:44 am
    
    @Fred,
    
    Follow the money.
Fred C. Dobbs says:

March 19, 2024 at 12:01 pm

R.B.G. Award Organizer Cancels Ceremony After Fallout Over Honorees

NY Times – yesterday

The organizer behind an honor named for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a lifelong champion of women’s rights and liberal causes, is canceling the award ceremony scheduled for April after facing blistering criticism from her family and friends over several of this year’s planned recipients. …

“The last thing we intended was to offend the family and friends of R.B.G.,” Julie Opperman, the chairwoman of Dwight D. Opperman Foundation, which awards the prize every year, said in a statement on Monday. She added: “The foundation is not interested in creating controversy. It is not interested in generating a debate about whether particular honorees are worthy or not.”

Ms. Opperman explained that the reason for including men as recipients this year was to reflect and uphold Justice Ginsburg’s “teachings regarding equality.” The foundation “did not consider politics” but focused on selecting leaders who “have made significant contributions to society,” she said. …
- Joel Eissenberg says:
  
  March 19, 2024 at 12:28 pm
  
  @Fred,
  
  Glad to hear they were cancelled. It has nothing to do with Y chromosome count. It has everything to do with these awardees betraying the values of RBG. In re:”leaders who “have made significant contributions to society,” Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin and Mao made significant contributions to society. One metric of the significance they made was the body count, which could be measured in hundreds of millions, collectively.
  - Fred C. Dobbs says:
    
    March 19, 2024 at 2:35 pm
    
    OTOH…
    
    Martha Stewart walked so a generation of lifestyle influencers could run
    
    CNN – Feb 3
    
    (MS might be the queen of lifestyle influencers. Surely that’s pretty much like being a leader these days. And a friend tells me that Sly Stallone is one heck of an action-movie hero.)
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  March 19, 2024 at 2:38 pm
  
  NY Times: ‘A spokesman for the Opperman Foundation confirmed on Monday night that the ceremony had been canceled, but said no decision had been made on whether those selected would still receive the award. In its statement, the foundation said it would “reconsider its mission” and assess “how or whether to proceed in the future.”’
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  March 19, 2024 at 2:46 pm
  
  But this may be definitive…
  
  (It would seem if you have followers, you must be a leader.)
  
  What Every Leader Needs to Know About Followers
  
  Harvard Business Review – December 2007
  
  There is no leader without at least one follower—that’s obvious. Yet the modern leadership industry, now a quarter-century old, is built on the proposition that leaders matter a great deal and followers hardly at all.
  
  Good leadership is the stuff of countless courses, workshops, books, and articles. Everyone wants to understand just what makes leaders tick—the charismatic ones, the retiring ones, and even the crooked ones. Good followership, by contrast, is the stuff of nearly nothing. Most of the limited research and writing on subordinates has tended to either explain their behavior in the context of leaders’ development rather than followers’ or mistakenly assume that followers are amorphous, all one and the same. As a result, we hardly notice, for example, that followers who tag along mindlessly are altogether different from those who are deeply devoted. …
  - Joel Eissenberg says:
    
    March 19, 2024 at 2:55 pm
    
    @Fred,
    
    Indeed. Franco was a leader who had followers. Hitler was a leader who had followers. Mussolini was a leader who had followers. Lenin was a leader who had followers. Stalin was a leader who had followers. Mao was a leader who had followers. Osama bin Laden was a leader who had followers. Kim Jung-Un is a leader with followers. Vladimir Putin is a leader with followers. None of them deserve an award named for RBG.
    
    I was quoted a few years ago in an article published in Martha Stewart Living. I still don’t think a convicted felon deserves an award named for RBG.