(Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
You don’t need to be a Ruth Bader Ginsburg stan to think this is all kinds of messed up. In fact, I’m on record that RBG was wrong about a bunch of things, and in a post-Dobbs world, it’s pretty clear that her insistence on staying in her seat on the Supreme Court until her death — which allowed Donald Trump to appoint Amy Coney Barrett in her place — was very much a mistake. But this is absurd.
In 2019, RBG worked with the Opperman Foundation to establish the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Leadership Award, designed, in her words, to honor “women who exemplify human qualities of empathy and humility.” But five short years later, the Foundation has taken a giant misstep on RBG’s legacy with an eyebrow-raising group of awardees. And it’s not just some loudmouth on the internet who thinks so — her son, James S. Ginsburg, said the awardees are an “insult to her name and legacy.”
So who are the nominees? As reported by the New York Times:
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.
The final two recipients are Sylvester Stallone and Martha Stewart.
The only defense the Opperman Foundation has made of the slate of awardees is that they’re opening up potential honorees to all genders. Julie Opperman, the chairwoman of the foundation, said, “Justice Ginsburg fought not only for women but for everyone. 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.”
I mean… okay? But is the award still about exemplifying the “human qualities of empathy and humility”? Because the only time Elon Musk and humility have appeared in the same sentence is when talking about antonyms. Plus, he made the once vibrant Twitter into a cesspool of hatred since taking over and rebranding the platform into X. And Rupert Murdoch? The Fox News empresario has made a literal fortune scaring old people into being less empathetic — to migrants, people of color, trans folx, indigenous people, Blue states… pretty much every “other” that exists.
But as reported by Mother Jones, Opperman is a major GOP donor, so that right there may be your answer, fishbulb.
Julie Opperman according to Federal Election Commission filings, is a major Republican donor. In 2016, she donated $50,000 to Rebuilding America Now, a super PAC founded by Paul Manafort and Tom Barrack—two top Trump advisers—to support the Trump presidential campaign. That year, she also donated $2,700, the legal maximum, directly to the Trump campaign. In 2020 Opperman contributed $200,000 to Republican campaigns and PACs, including a $100,000 donation to the Take Back The House 2020 PAC and $92,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee.
So, yeah. You aren’t the only one who thinks the Opperman Foundation has twisted the award for their own purposes, making a mockery of EVERYTHING the justice stood for. One of RBG’s former clerks and former dean of NYU Law School, Trevor W. Morrison, wrote to the Foundation to lodge his complaint with the honorees:
“Justice Ginsburg had an abiding commitment to careful, rigorous analysis and to fair-minded engagement with people of opposing views,” he said in a letter addressed to the organization that confers the awards, the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation. “It is difficult to see how the decision to bestow the R.B.G. Award on this year’s slate reflects any appreciation for — or even awareness of — these dimensions of the justice’s legacy.”
And Columbia Law professor — and daughter of the late justice — Jane Ginsburg 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 these awards.”
Shana Knizhnik, an author of “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” said, “A self-described ‘flaming feminist litigator,’ Justice Ginsburg represented both men and women who defied gender norms and stereotypes as a way of advancing gender equality.” She continued, “Honoring Elon Musk, who uses his platform to promote anti-feminist and anti-L.G.B.T.Q. sentiments, and Rupert Murdoch, who has used his immense power to undermine democracy, dishonors what Justice Ginsburg spent her career standing for.”
Given the absolute tire fire of awardees, the justice’s children would very much like the Opperman Foundation to get their mother’s name out their mouths. That is, they’d like RBG’s name removed from the award, “unless the original award criteria, as accepted by Justice Ginsburg, are restored.”
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.