Constitution Center Lifetime Award: Who Are The Recipients?

The National Constitution Center's Liberty Medal is an annual award established in 1988 to commemorate the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. The award recognizes men and women of courage and conviction who strive to secure liberty for people around the world. Notable recipients of the award include Muhammad Ali, Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, and Ken Burns, who received the 36th annual Liberty Medal in 2024.

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Ken Burns

Burns's documentaries have earned two Academy Award nominations (for 1981's Brooklyn Bridge and 1985's The Statue of Liberty) and have won several prestigious awards, including 14-17 Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and a 1991 National Humanities Medal. Burns was also the first filmmaker to match humanities scholars with his work. In 2008, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Burns has also been recognised with numerous other honours, including the Washington University International Humanities Medal in 2012, the Robin W. Winks Award for Enhancing Public Understanding of National Parks in 2010, and the Erik Barnouw Award from the Organization of American Historians, which he has won three times.

In 2024, Burns was honoured with the National Constitution Center's annual Liberty Medal, which recognises men and women of courage and conviction who strive to advance liberty and equality worldwide. The award specifically acknowledged Burns's impact in illuminating America's greatest triumphs and tragedies and inspiring a deeper understanding of the principles at the heart of the American idea.

The National Constitution Center is a private, nonprofit organisation dedicated to promoting constitutional education and debate. It serves as a platform for people of all ages and perspectives to learn about, discuss, and celebrate the US Constitution, bringing together conservative and liberal thought leaders to engage in constructive dialogue.

Hamilton and Ron Chernow

The National Constitution Center will honour Hamilton and Ron Chernow with the Liberty Medal for their impact in bringing the story of the U.S. Constitution to life for generations of Americans. Hamilton, the Broadway hit, was inspired by Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton, which was published in 2004. Chernow's biography was a New York Times bestseller and was named the winner of the inaugural George Washington Book Prize for early American history. It also won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was nominated for several other awards.

Hamilton, the musical, has had a profound impact on culture, politics, and education. It has won 11 Tony Awards, Grammy and Olivier Awards, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and a special citation from the Kennedy Center Honours.

Ron Chernow is a distinguished commentator on politics, business, and finance. He has won several awards for his writing, including the Pulitzer Prize for Biography for his book Washington: A Life, the American History Book Prize, and the National Humanities Medal. Chernow has also received honorary degrees and doctorates from several colleges and universities.

Chernow is a familiar figure on national radio and television shows and has appeared in numerous documentaries. He has served as the president of PEN American Center and has sat on the board of several organisations, including the Society of American Historians and Humanity in Action. He is also a fellow of the New York Academy of History and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Loujain al-Hathloul

Loujain's activism began during her studies in Canada, through her social media. She became one of the leaders in the Saudi Women's Rights movement, reshaping the process of mass collective consciousness-raising. In 2015, Loujain stood for local council elections after a royal decree allowed women to both vote and run for office. However, her name was never added to the ballot. In September 2016, along with 14,000 others, she signed a petition to King Salman asking for the male guardianship system to be abolished. On 4 June 2017, she was arrested and detained at King Fahd International Airport in Dammam. The reason for her arrest was not officially disclosed, although Amnesty International believed it was due to her human rights activism.

Loujain has been arrested on several occasions for defying the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia. In May 2018, she and several prominent women's rights activists were kidnapped in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and deported to Saudi Arabia, where they were charged with "attempting to destabilize the kingdom." She was subjected to physical torture, including waterboarding, electric shocks, forced eating, sexual harassment, and threats of rape and murder. She was prevented from visiting and communicating with her family during the first month of detention and was placed in solitary confinement intermittently for about a year. In June 2018, women were granted the right to drive in Saudi Arabia, while Loujain remained under arrest. She was released from prison on 10 February 2021, after more than 1000 days in detention, but continues to live under a travel ban.

For her activism, Loujain has won several international awards, including the 2019 PEN America/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, the 2020 Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, and a 2019 Honorary Doctorate from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. She was also ranked third in the list of "Top 100 Most Powerful Arab Women 2015" and was named one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People of 2019". She was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 and 2020. In addition to these accolades, Loujain received the 33rd annual Liberty Medal from the National Constitution Center, along with Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai, for their courage and conviction in exercising their fundamental rights of freedom of speech, nonviolent resistance, and peaceful dissent.

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The National Constitution Center's 32nd annual Liberty Medal was awarded to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, for her efforts to advance liberty and equality for all. The National Constitution Center honoured Ginsburg through a video tribute in words and music, broadcast live on Thursday, 17 September 2020, Constitution Day.

Ginsburg was one of the few women studying at Harvard Law School in the 1950s. Despite her outstanding academic record, law firms refused to hire her, and a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court would not employ her as his clerk solely because of her sex. Despite these obstacles, she became one of the nation’s foremost legal scholars and a highly effective advocate for the equality of the sexes. She argued a series of historic cases before the Supreme Court, establishing the equal citizenship rights of men and women.

Ginsburg continued to appear frequently before the Supreme Court, arguing cases of sex discrimination. One of the most important of these was Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld (1975). Stephen Wiesenfeld was a widower who had been denied the Social Security child support benefits that a woman would have received in the same situation. Her victory in this case was followed three years later by another in Duren v. Missouri. State law in Missouri had made jury duty compulsory for men but optional for women. Ginsburg argued that this devalued women’s contribution as citizens, and once again, her position prevailed. By this time, she had earned a national reputation as a leading advocate for the equal citizenship status of men and women.

In 1980, Ginsburg’s first term as a D.C. Circuit judge began. Appointed by President Jimmy Carter, Ginsburg was expected to be a liberal firebrand, but ultimately demonstrated the caution of a common-law constitutionalist. In these years, she also began to speak as a visiting lecturer at law schools and other institutions in the United States and Europe, including the law schools of Harvard and New York University, the Universities of Amsterdam and Strasbourg, the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, and Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

Muhammad Ali

Ali was hailed as a representative of the bicentennial of the Constitution, embodying the spirit of the Liberty Medal by embracing the ideals of freedom, self-governance, equality, and empowerment, and helping to spread them worldwide. His athletic and humanitarian feats, unparalleled courage and conviction, and his lifelong dedication to advancing liberty and equality for people around the globe, earned him this distinguished recognition.

In addition to his athletic achievements, Ali's humanitarian endeavours were widely recognised. He received the Amnesty International Media Spotlight Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998, and was named the United Nations Messenger of Peace in 1998, an honour bestowed upon him by Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Ali was also recognised as the International Ambassador of Jubilee 2000, a global organisation dedicated to relieving debt in developing nations.

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