Comment President Biden on Thursday will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to 17 people in a wide variety of endeavors, including athlete Simone Biles, Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington and, posthumously, inventor Steve Jobs and the former senator. John McCain. Biden’s list of recipients, his first as president, includes figures in politics, sports, entertainment, religion, civil rights, labor and the military. “President Biden has long said that America can be defined in one word: potential. These seventeen Americans demonstrate the power of possibility and embody the soul of the nation — hard work, perseverance and faith,” the White House said in a statement last week. Honorees range from Biles, 25, the most decorated U.S. athlete in history to advocate for victims of sexual assault, to former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), 90, the sharp-witted politician and son of the governor who served 18 years in the Senate and was outspoken on the issue of fiscal responsibility. Other honorees include Sister Simone Campbell, former director of the Network, a Catholic social justice organization that was instrumental in the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Biden once participated in her “Nuns on the Bus” tour. The president also recognizes Washington, an actor, director and producer who has served as a national spokesperson for Boys & Girls Clubs of America for more than 25 years. and Megan Rapinoe, a member of the US women’s national soccer team since 2006, who has won an Olympic gold medal and two World Cup championships. She is also the captain of the OL Reign, a professional team based in Seattle in the National Women’s Soccer League. Rapinoe’s exploits on the soccer field are matched by her activism off it. She has been prominent in pushing for equal pay for the women’s national team and has been outspoken on social justice and LGBTQ issues. Rapinoe was with the U.S. women’s team in Mexico as it tries to qualify for the World Cup, but is expected to attend the ceremony. During his four years in office, President Donald Trump has honored 24 people, a roster of golfers — Tiger Woods, Gary Player and Annika Sorenstam — and some of his staunchest political allies, including radio host Rush Limbaugh and Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio); Biden’s list of political honorees includes Republicans and Democrats. Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), co-founded Giffords, a nonprofit organization focused on preventing gun violence, after she was shot in the head at a Tucson event in January 2011 and critically injured. She is married to former astronaut Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who is up for re-election this year. Biden served in the Senate with McCain (R-Ariz.), the 2008 Republican presidential nominee and decorated Vietnam War veteran who died in 2018 of brain cancer. McCain’s widow, Cindy, endorsed Biden in 2020 as the Democrat upended the party’s fortunes in Arizona, winning the state. Cindy McCain is now the US ambassador to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Jobs, who died in 2011 of cancer, was the co-founder and CEO of Apple, whose company’s inventions revolutionized the lives of billions of people around the world with Mac computers, the iPhone and the iPod. The list also includes Khizr Khan, a Gold Star father who has been an advocate for the rule of law and religious freedom while serving on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. and Wilma Vaught, one of the most distinguished women in the history of the US military. Biden will honor Fred Gray, one of the first black members of the Alabama Legislature since Reconstruction and a lawyer who represented civil rights activists such as Rep. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, along with the NAACP. Other honorees include Raúl Yzaguirre, a civil rights activist who served as CEO and president of the National Council of La Raza for 30 years, and Diane Nash, a founding member of the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee.
Juliet García, the former president of the University of Texas at Brownsville and the first Mexican American woman to serve as a college president. Father Alexandros Karloutsos, former vicar general of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Sandra Lindsay, an intensive care nurse from New York who served on the front lines of the pandemic response. Richard Trumka, the late president of the AFL-CIO;
Steven Goff contributed to this report.
