Why is the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation giving an award to Elon Musk in RBG’s name?
It was a startling tweet: an award in the name of Ruth Bader Ginsberg (1923-2020) is being presented to Elon Musk, Martha Stewart, Michael Milken, Robert Murdoch and Sylvester Stallone. An award to “honor brave, strong and resilient women who have dedicated their lives to create positive change in society” is being presented to four men.
The sponsoring organization? The Dwight D. Opperman Foundation, which seems to exist in name only.
Brendan V. Sullivan, Jr. is the award chair. Sullivan, 82, may be best known for defending of U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North during the Iran-Contra scandal.
Chairing the event: Amy Baier, 46, is married to Bret Baier, Fox News chief political anchor. The Fondation president is attorney Matthew Umhofer, 50 (?), Los Angeles.
Ruth Bader Ginsberg made the inaugural presentation in October 2020. It was then called the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award (emphasis added). According to Opperman’s widow, Julie Opperman, 42:
She was very keen to establish the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Woman of Leadership Award, her legacy award that would honor brave, strong and resilient women who have dedicated their lives to create positive change in society. She entrusted me, through my late husband’s foundation, to do it. I wasn’t sure I heard her right, so I asked her to please repeat herself, which caused the biggest laugh I heard out of her in the 14 years I’ve known her (emphasis added).
That first award went to civic leader and philanthropist Agnes Gund.
- 2021, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second.
- 2022, Diane von Furstenberg
- 2023, Barbra Streisand
And now this:
This is the 2024 slate – not just one person and only one woman:
- Elon Musk supports antisemitism
- Martha Stewart, a felon
- Michael Milken, a felon
- Robert Murdoch, owner of the leading source of political disinformation in the United States
- Sylvester Stallone, repeatedly accused of sexual assault
Just the people to be receive an award named for the Notorious RBG. Well, they got the notorious right.
Perhaps just as startling:
1. The Dwight D. Opperman Foundation filed its last IRS 990 form in 2020. Assets: $0. According to the Library of Congress, the Foundation donated $1,000,000 that year.
To answer the question in the headline … who the hell knows?
2. Someone registered the domain name for the Foundation in 2012. It is currently active, but the website has been “under construction” since 2021.
3. The only 2020 PR Newswire entry referencing the award went “blank” between my screen capture of RBG (below) and archive.today completing an archive. It is available at the Internet Archive (1:01 am, Pacific).
In 2020:
The inaugual award ceremony took place on Valentine’s Day, 2020. David Rubenstein was chair of the award committee, which Barbra Streisand for the inaugural honor.
At that time, Robert R. Newlen, a former deputy at the Library of Congress and currently interim director of the Congressional Research Service, served as executive director of the Foundation. Dwight D. Opperman (1923-2013) was CEO and chair of West Publishing Company, which provided electronic records through its product, WestLaw (now part of Thomson Reuters).
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