What is the foundation behind the Ruth Bader Ginsburg award controversy?

Controversy has erupted across the Dwight D. Opperman Basis, a nonprofit with longstanding ties to the Supreme Courtroom.

The group was set to honor recipients reminiscent of billionaire Elon Musk, junk bond market creator Michael Milken and conservative media titan Rupert Murdoch with its “RBG Award” — named after the late Supreme Courtroom Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It shortly backpedaled after the liberal justice’s household blasted the choice.

This is a fast information to the controversy, and the muse on the middle of it:

What does the Opperman Basis say?

Most notably, it modified its standards for the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Girl of Management Award, because it was known as when it was created in 2019. Relatively than highlighting ladies, this yr’s winners would acknowledge “trailblazing women and men,” the Opperman basis mentioned. Its 2024 recipients had been to additionally embody TV persona Martha Stewart and actor Sylvester Stallone.

“This yr we chosen leaders in numerous fields. We honored males for the primary time,” basis chair Julie Opperman wrote.

Then got here the blowback, prompting the muse to cancel plans for what was to be “an unique ceremony and gala on the Library of Congress” subsequent month.

No awards can be given this yr, the muse advised NPR.

“We thought RBG’s teachings concerning EQUALITY ought to be practiced,” Opperman mentioned in an announcement concerning the controversy. “We didn’t contemplate politics. As an alternative, we targeted on leaders, who, in their very own manner, have made vital contributions to society.”

What does Ginsburg’s household assume?

This yr’s choices for the RBG Award appear to have caught Ginsburg’s household and supporters abruptly: the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Girl of Management Award had been touted as a celebration of girls who’re position fashions and have a optimistic impression on the world. Final yr’s winner was Barbra Streisand.

However this yr’s iteration of the award erased the phrase “Girl.” And for per week or so, it regarded as if two convicted felons (Milken, who was pardoned by former President Trump, and Stewart) would have a big medal that includes the late justice draped round their neck.

After the winners had been introduced, Ginsburg’s household acknowledged that the 5 had achieved “notable success” of their careers. However giving them the RBG Award “is a hanging betrayal of the Justice’s legacy,” Ginsburg’s former legislation clerk, Trevor Morrison, dean emeritus on the New York College Faculty of Legislation, advised the muse’s chair in a letter despatched on behalf of the household.

What’s the Opperman Basis?

It was established by Dwight D. Opperman, a lawyer and government within the authorized publishing trade who died at age 89 in 2013. Opperman was the chief of West Publishing Firm, who’s credited with engineering its pivot from paper to digital codecs, finally creating Westlaw, a broadly used on-line analysis system. Westlaw was acquired by Thomson Reuters in 1996.

Greater than 40 years in the past, Opperman additionally created an essential award for federal judges, sponsoring the Devitt Award — which, just like the RBG Award, makes use of a committee to pick a recipient. In an indication of the award’s esteem, Supreme Courtroom Chief Justice John Roberts selects one of many excessive courtroom’s justices to chair the choice panel. The award is introduced on the courtroom itself.

When Opperman died, then-Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has chaired the Devitt panel, delivered the eulogy.

Opperman was additionally a famous benefactor of the Library of Congress. In 2011, his spouse, Julie Opperman, “donated two volumes of an awfully uncommon 1478 version of the Casus breves of Johannes de Turnhout (c. 1446–1492)” in his honor, the library mentioned.

Within the kerfuffle over the brand new RBG Awards, the Library of Congress clarified that it was solely serving as a venue for now-canceled award ceremony, saying it wasn’t concerned with the awards themselves.

Final yr, the Library of Congress introduced the return of Robert Newlen. Newlen had taken a management position on the Opperman Basis after retiring from his put up as deputy Librarian of Congress in 2017.

In his time as the manager director and director of strategic initiatives of the muse, the library mentioned, Newlen “oversaw all operations of the muse and applied the annual Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Girl of Management Award.”

Who chosen the RBG Award recipients?

The inspiration says the RBG Award was chaired this yr by Brendan V. Sullivan, Jr., an lawyer who represented Oliver North within the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987 — when he famously defended his objections on North’s behalf by telling a senator, “Properly, sir, I am not a potted plant. I am right here because the lawyer. That is my job.”

Sullivan’s profession consists of quite a few high-profile felony and antitrust circumstances; he was lately named Lawyer of the Yr by the Bar Affiliation in Washington, D.C.

“Justice Ginsburg turned an icon by bravely pursuing her personal path and prevailing in opposition to the chances,” Sullivan mentioned as this yr’s recipients had been introduced. “The honorees mirror the integrity and achievement that outlined Justice Ginsburg’s profession and legend.”

In its first yr, the muse mentioned the awards chair oversaw a six-person voting council. Final yr’s award panel had greater than a dozen members — together with at the very least two individuals with ties to this yr’s honorees: Jennifer Flavin Stallone (spouse of Sylvester) and Martha Stewart herself.

Because it introduced the honorees for 2024, the muse made no point out of the controversies clouding the 5.

Who else has gained the RBG Award?

Agnes Gund, the philanthropist and justice reform activist, gained the primary version of the award, which she accepted from Ginsburg herself at a ceremony in early 2020. Ginsburg died later that yr.

Streisand was honored in 2023, receiving the award from Ginsburg’s former colleague, Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The RBG Award’s two different recipients are Queen Elizabeth II, who was honored in 2021, and dressmaker Diane von Furstenberg, who gained in 2022.