What do Vin Scully and Tom Hanks have in common? Only the nation’s highest civilian honor
President Obama this week named 21 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Here are the latest recipients.
President Obama is honoring several California luminaries with the nation’s highest civilian honor, including veteran Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully, former Lakers superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and superstar architect Frank Gehry.
They are among 21 people Obama plans to recognize with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House on Tuesday.
Entertainers include Ellen DeGeneres, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen, Robert DeNiro, Cicely Tyson, Tom Hanks and Robert Redford.
Other honorees are philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates, polymath physicist Richard Garwin, designer Maya Lin, “Saturday Night Live” producer Lorne Michaels, attorney Newt Minow, mathematician and computer scientist Margaret H. Hamilton, and Eduardo Padrón, president of Miami Dade College in Florida.
Posthumous honors will go to Native American advocate Elouise Cobell and Rear Adm. Grace Hopper.
Another major sports star being honored: NBA great Michael Jordan.
According to the White House, the award is “presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
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