This quiz could be fairly paraphrased, if in vulgar fashion, as “Who’s the asshole?“
Established in 2019, the RBG Leadership Award is supposed to honor “trailblazing” men and women of distinction, with “distinction” having a rather broad and vaguely defined meaning, as the pronouncements of officials connected with the awards made clear. “Justice Ginsburg became an icon by bravely pursuing her own path and prevailing against the odds,” said Brendan V. Sullivan, Jr., chair of the RBG Award. “The honorees reflect the integrity and achievement that defined Justice Ginsburg’s career and legend.” “Justice Ginsburg was a legal entrepreneur who innovated and took risks in ways that rewarded us all,” said Matthew Umhofer, president of the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation, which administers the awards. “In a world that sought to define and limit her, she found ways to challenge and change the system, armed with nothing more than a brilliant mind and a powerful pen. Her impact transcended the law, and society is better off for it.” “Such is the spirit that defines the honorees of the RBG Award,” adds the award’s website.
This year, it was decided that the awards, which were originally limited to women of distinction (because Ginsburg was an iconic feminist and women’s rights advocate), should be awarded to men as well. “Justice Ginsburg fought not only for women but for everyone,” said Julie Opperman, Chair of the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation. “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.”
[Can you see what’s coming? Diversity-obsessed progressives were set up to be hoisted on their own petard!]
When this years’ honorees were announced, it is fair to say that the late Justice Ginsburg’s family flipped out. The awards went to…
ELON MUSK – Entrepreneurship
SYLVESTER STALLONE – Cultural Icon
MARTHA STEWART – Industry Leadership
MICHAEL MILKEN – Philanthropy
RUPERT MURDOCH – Media Mogul
…and the family’s and assorted Ginsburg admirers’ collective heads exploded. 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 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,” she said.
Trevor W. Morrison, a former dean of New York University School of Law and one of the justice’s former law clerks, condemned the choices in a letter addressed to the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation. “Justice Ginsburg had an abiding commitment to careful, rigorous analysis and to fair-minded engagement with people of opposing views,” he said “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.” Shana Knizhnik, an author of “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, ” spat out, “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.”
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…
Who is being unethical (unfair, disrespectful, incompetent irresponsible and/or breaching trust), the administrators of the awards, the critics of the awards, neither, or both?
The explanations of the awards from the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Leadership Award website: Musk is being honored for his dedication to free speech. Martha Stewart was apparently on Justice Ginsburg’s original wish list of potential honorees; she’s certainly a remarkable success story and entrepreneur. (She also spent time in prison for insider trading.)
Michael Milken, after he got out of prison, has become a notable philanthropist, giving away nearly 10% of his fortune. Milken founded the Prostate Cancer Foundation for prostate cancer research, now the largest philanthropic source of funds for research into prostate cancer. In 2003, Milken launched a Washington, D.C.-based think tank called FasterCures, which seeks greater efficiency in researching all serious diseases. George Washington University renamed its public health school after Milken in recognition of $50 million in donations from the Milken Institute and the Milken Family Foundation designated for research and scholarship on public health issues.
Sylvester Stallone received the award for creating “culture-defining iconic characters” that have “inspired hope in multitudes across the globe.” Rupert Murdoch was honored for being an “iconic living legend in media.”
Given the criteria, it would hard to argue that all of the honorees are not qualified as trailblazers, leaders and people of distinction. On the other hand, if the Opperman Foundation had set out to annoy RBG’s fans and family, they hardly could have done a better job of it. After bailing (appropriately) on the women-only criteria, you would think that at least three of the five awards would have gone to women, if only for diplomacy purposes. Surely there is some philanthropist out there who wasn’t the face of corporate greed and corruption in the 80s as Milken was. Murdoch is undeniable a leader in media and has advanced Ginsburg’s ideal of encouraging free speech and diverse opinions, but he’s anathema to the Left. I’d like to believe that Ginsburg was more open-minded than her family and fans and would have approved of the choices, but the negative response of Ginsburg’s flame-keepers is sadly typical of the current intolerance and smug certitude on the Left.
Who’s the asshole? I’m tempted to say both sides qualify.
And you?
Ethics Alarms 
If the award was given out in spite, than I would say both. There is a very right leaning slant here which suprises me when it comes to something like this. However, if the awards were genuine and deserving based on accomplishments (maybe not criteria) then I can not fault the committee.
This may be an award show worthwatching just to see the exploding heads!
Very interesting that after four years of honoring just one person per year, they decided to go with five this time. I think you could easily justify all those people — but I think it also appears to be an in-your-face slap at progressives.
I’d guess Ginsberg herself might have gone along with most of these folks. She was very left leaning, but I don’t think she was the closed minded, vicious sort of person that seems to typify today’s progressives.
I wonder also if the awards committee’s membership has changed this year much? Martha Stewart used to be on that committee…
have to agree. Met RBG twice. Model of civility. Seemed open-minded. Great sense of humor. Doubt she would have dissented (publicly at least) from these selections. But Stallone?
The award purports to honor Justice Ginsberg, but it is administered by a foundation named for a venture capitalist, and this is a venture capitalist’s hall of fame: four sleazy, hypocritical, corporate types, and one of the worst famous actors in history. All white, and 80% men. Seriously, you want a cultural icon known for philanthropy? How about Taylor Swift? Oh, but she hasn’t served any time in prison, so I guess that disqualifies her. RBG is spinning in her grave so fast she could provide electricity to a medium-sized city.
By “worst,” I assume you mean artistically speaking, not personal character-wise, yes? I wouldn’t argue with that, though in his action genre, Sly is a better actor than Arnold, Segal, Statham…Bruce Willis was more versatile. I’d still have given him the Oscar over Peter Finch for the original “Rocky,” and he does get credit for truly creating the character, since he wrote the screenplay. Still—it was a quirky choice. I’d say Musk is the most defensible under RBG’s name. Why the Justice was so taken with Martha Stewart is a mystery.
Someone else noted Martha was possibly a former member of the committee, although it appears RBG herself informally nominated her as either a committee member or potential recipient. No word as to whether Steward actually served on the committee.
2024 JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG LEADERSHIP AWARD HONORS ELON MUSK, SYLVESTER STALLONE, MARTHA STEWART, MICHAEL MILKEN, AND RUPERT MURDOCH (prnewswire.com)
Yes, I meant as an actor, not as a person, wrt to Stallone. (I have no idea whether he’s a mensch or not.) Much of the early hype for him was that he was so good at playing such an inarticulate character. Then we saw him interviewed and realized that he wasn’t acting.
If Musk really were the champion of free speech he pretends to be, I might agree with you on that score. But he isn’t even close to being that.
Musk is weird, and he has certainly been inconsistent and sometimes hypocritical in his 1A management of Twitter. BUT I don’t see how he doesn’t deserve great credit an accolades for making the “Twitter files’ public, helping to reveal the sinister efforts by the government to force social media platforms to censor speech, cleaning out the partisan censors on Twitter, reinstating Trump, and making a very powerful statement (and an expensive one) about the importance of letting people talk, vent, opine, and yes, offer “misinformation,” which is often in the eye of the beholder. The old Twitter, you’ll recall, banned the Hunter Biden laptop story, and that’s when I quit Twitter. I’m not sure it’s possible to run such a platform fairly and responsibly, but with all his missteps and mistake, Musk was and is still on the right side of this: more speech rather than less.
Musk isn’t “weird,” he’s just a wealthy and therefore pampered narcissist, like his favorite presidential candidate. His promise to allow even criticism of himself lasted less than a week. He allows trans users to be dead-named but calls “cis” a slur. He hasn’t done even as much as his predecessors did to defend free speech rights outside the US. He cares nothing about the 1st amendment per se; he just wants people who agree with him to be able to say anything they want.
This doesn’t change the fact that the release of those files was a good thing, but I struggle to believe he acted out of other than purely political (as opposed to what could loosely be called patriotic) motives. There’s no question in my mind that he’s a net minus in the free expression department (in addition to being a jackass).
Narcissist and jackass are undeniable, but again, the record shows that Twitter is currently more balanced in its acceptance of positions on both ends of the ideological spectrum than it was under the previous regime, and with the other Big Tech platforms still manipulating search results and more, having a more neutral Twitter can only be rated a boon.
Personally, I think “cis” is a slur as it is commonly used, similar to Hawaiians calling whites “Howlies.” It’s othering, and intended as such. But Musk doesn’t ban tweets that use “cis” (though he might on a whim).
Both.
I’d say it’s rather unethical to upsurp the name of a public figure and then conduct PR events without the families of that individual composing a majority of the decision boards.
Maybe the families were extended these positions and couldn’t be bothered… Then they should be holding their breath.
Perhaps the award itself is stupid, incompetent, and pretentious.
Add arbitrary, and you pretty much have covered all such awards, including the Medal of Freedom, the Pulitzers and the Nobels.
I just want to focus on Musk. I would say that if you want to honor an entrepreneur who has changed the world recently, Musk has to be your pick. Musk is the Crosley of the early 21st century. He has founded the only successful electric car company in the West, pioneered a dominant role for private space access, and now is the only prominent voice for allowing common people to express their opinions and views on the internet.
To denigrate Musk, as Ginsberg’s supporters have done, suggests that she was NOT in favor of the 1st Amendment and that she did not believe that common people should be able to voice their opinions if they disagree with the elites. This may be true, I don’t know. It is consistent with how she has been presented for decades by her fans, however.
I think RGB’s supporters will only be happy if these awards are renamed “RGB’s Courage in Abortion Awards”.
Apparently, the RGB award ceremony has been canceled.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg award ceremony canceled amid controversy : NPR
On one hand, typical intolerance and rigidity from the Left. On the other—it was as if the organizers were deliberately trying to provoke this reaction.